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< 1901-1925

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Mid and late 20th Century

By the way, [Isaac] Newton suggested that the world will come to an end in 2060. --Lawrence M. Principe, Science and Religion; Lecture 7: God the Watchmaker; The Teaching Company December 21, 2012 end date of the Mayan Long Count calendar

Jeanette WINTERSON (b. 1959) Reference: Official Site Criticism: Weblog
The Passion (1997)

At some unmarked point during the last twenty years we imperceptibly moved out of the Modern Age and into a new, as yet nameless, era. --Peter F. Drucker, Landmarks of Tomorrow (1957), p. ix

Tony KUSHNER (b. 1956) Criticism: Greenberg | Wolcott | Beam | Steyn
Angels in America (1991, 1992) Criticism: Mendelsohn | Lyons When all is said and done, 'Angels' itself is guilty of its own kind of reprehensible abandonment: abandonment of the tragic for the sentimental, of real intellectual challenges for feel-good nostrums, of hard questions about guilt and responsibility for easy finger-pointing at all the usual suspects. --Daniel Mendelsohn, 'Winged Messages', New York Review of Books, February 15, 2004, p.47

Michael POLLAN (b. 1955) Reference: Website
The Botany of Desire (2001) It is about the concept of what he calls co-evolution, in this case between mankind and four plants--apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. --Charles Van Doren, The Joy of Reading (2008) p. 507
The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006) What we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and he warns that modern agribiz is a destructive, precarious agricultural system that has wrought havoc on the diet, nutrition, and well-being of Americans as well as the inhabitants of the other developed countries of the Earth --Charles Van Doren, The Joy of Reading (2008) p. 508

David GROSSMAN (b. 1954)
See Under: Love (1989)

Kevin HART (b. 1954) Etext: two poems
Peniel and Other Poems (1991)

Thylias MOSS (b. 1954) Etext: selections
Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (1993)

Rita DOVE (b. 1952) Reference: Home Page Criticism: Nussbaum
Selected Poems (1993)

Paul MULDOON (b. 1951) Reference: Website
Selected Poems (1986)

Geoffrey HILL (b. 1950) Etext: Before senility, Citations I, and Coda
Collected Poems

Edward HIRSCH (b. 1950)
Earthly Measures

Gloria NAYLOR (b. 1950)
The Women of Brewster Place

Reference: Literature & Culture of the American 1950s

Denis JOHNSON (b. 1949)
Angels
Fiskadoro
Jesus' Son

Robert COOVER (b. 1948)
Spanking the Maid

Mark HELPRIN (b. 1947) Reference: Official Site
Winter's Tale (1983)
A Soldier of the Great War (1995)

David MAMET (b. 1947) Etext: Secret Names Reference: The David Mamet Society Criticism: Weblog Humor: Heaney
American Buffalo (1975)
Speed-the-Plow (1988)

Salman RUSHDIE (b. 1947) Criticism: Boyagoda | Weinberger
Midnight's Children Criticism: Rosenthal

Edwin MUIR (b. 1946) Criticism: Richman
Collected Poems

People by 1945 could no longer be sure of the direction in which history took them. But they could still be sure that there was a direction; and they could, if they wished, select among a variety of theories that described their destination. After 1945, they could ever less often be sure even that any direction to human affairs existed at all, that they were not totally adrift in a meaningless universe. --Oscar Handlin, 'The Unmarked Way', The American Scholar, Summer 1996, p. 344

Pere GIMFERRER (b. 1945)
Selected Poems

J. D. MCCARTHY (b. 1945)
The Rest of the Way

Simon SCHAMA (b. 1945) Criticism: Jardine
Citizens (1989)

Adam ZAGAJEWSKI (b. 1945) Reference: TP Criticism: Haven
Tremor

August WILSON (1945-2005) Reference: PAL
Fences
Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Douglas CRASE (b. 1944)
The Revisionist (1981)

Alice WALKER (b. 1944)
The Color Purple (1982)

Reinaldo ARENAS (b. 1943) Reference: Knitting
The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando

Peter CAREY (b. 1943)
Oscar and Lucinda
Illywhacker

Alfred CORN (b. 1943)
A Call in the Midst of the Crowd

Sam SHEPARD (b. 1943)
Seven Plays

John CROWLEY (b. 1942)
Little, Big
Aegypt
Love and Sleep

Mahmud DARWISH (b. 1942)
The Music of Human Flesh

Peter HANDKE (b. 1942)
Slow Homecoming

Stephen HAWKING (b. 1942)
A Brief History of Time (1988)

John IRVING (b. 1942) Reference: BookReporter | The New York Times Criticism: Smith | Herel | Van Doren
The World According to Garp (1978)
The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)

Roberto CALASSO (b. 1941)
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia 1988)

James McCOURT (b. 1941)
Time Remaining

James WILCOX (b. 1941) Reference: Starkville
Modern Baptists (1983)

Paul THEROUX (b. 1941)
The Mosquito Coast

J. M. COETZEE (John Maxwell Coetzee b. 1940) Reference: Nobel Prize | Times Topics Criticism: Weblog
Foe (1986)
Disgrace (1999)
Elizabeth Costello (2003)

Thomas M. DISCH (b. 1940)
On Wings of Song

David RABE (b. 1940)
Streamers

Edmund WHITE (b. 1940) Reference: Author
Forgetting Elena
Nocturnes for the King of Naples

Joseph BRODSKY (1940-1996) Criticism: Viereck
So Forth (1996)
A Part of Speech: Poems

Ayi K. ARMAH (b. 1939) Reference: Pegasos
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Margaret ATWOOD (b. 1939) Criticism: Weblog Reference: O. W. Toad
Surfacing (1972)
The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Seamus HEANEY (b. 1939) Etext: Internet Poetry Archive Criticism: Tillinghast But every age must have a great poet, whether he truly exists or not, and Seamus Heaney is apparently the man appointed for the job. --Joseph Epstein, 'The Literary Life' at 25, The New Criterion, September 2007, p. 7
Selected Poems 1969-1987
Field Work
Station Island

Les A. MURRAY (b. 1938)
The Rabbiter's Bounty: Collected Poems

Wa Thiong'o NGUGI (b. 1938)
A Grain of Wheat

Joyce Carol OATES (b. 1938)
Them

Ishmael REED (b. 1938)
Mumbo Jumbo

Charles SIMIC (b. 1938) Criticism: Matic
Selected Poems

Raymond CARVER (1938-1988) Criticism: Kermode
Where I'm Calling From

Amos OZ (b. 1937)
A Perfect Peace

Robert STONE (b. 1937)
Dog Soldiers
A Flag for Sunrise

Thomas PYNCHON (b. 1937)
V. (1963)
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
One star: Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Tom STOPPARD (b. 1937) Criticism: Weblog
Travesties (1974)

Severo SARDUY (1937-1993)
Maitreya

Don DELILLO (b. 1936) Reference: Don DeLillo Society
White Noise
Libra
Running Dog
Mao II

Lars GUSTAFSSON (b. 1936)
Selected Poems

Vaclav HAVEL (b. 1936) Criticism: Ward
Memorandum [Vyrozumeni] (1967)
The Garden Party [Zahradni Slavnost] (1969)
Largo Desolato (1985)

Daryl HINE (b. 1936)
Selected Poems

Dalia RAVIKOVITCH (b. 1936)
A Dress of Fire

Jonathan D. SPENCE (b. 1936)
The Death of Woman Wang
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Mario VARGAS LLOSA (b. 1936) Reference: pagina web oficial | Authors' Calendar | New York Times Criticism: Weblog
The War at the End of the World

Avraham B. YEHOSHUA (b. 1936) Reference: JVL
A Late Divorce

Georges PEREC (1936-1982)
Life, A User's Manual (1978)

James APPLEWHITE (b. 1935) Etext: Road Down Home | My Uncle's Parsonage
River Writing: An Eno Journal

John Pepper CLARK-BEKEDEREMO (b. 1935)
Casualties: Poems

Thomas KENEALLY (b. 1935)
The Playmaker
Schindler's List

Danilo KIS (b. 1935)
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich

David LODGE (b. 1935)
Changing Places (1975)
Small World (1984)

Larry MCMURTRY (b. 1935)
Lonesome Dove (1985)

Antonio PORTA (b. 1935)
Kisses from Another Dream

Daniel QUINN (b. 1935) Reference: The Ishmael Community
Ishmael (1992)

Charles WRIGHT (b. 1935) Etext: Poets
The World of the Ten Thousand Things

Jay WRIGHT (b. 1935) Etext: Poets
Dimensions of History (1976)
The Double Invention of Komo (1980)
Elaine's Book (1986)
Selected Poems (1987)
Boleros (1991)

J. G. FARRELL (1935-1979)
The Siege of Krishnapur

Edward BOND (b. 1934)
The Fool
Saved

David MALOUF (b. 1934)
An Imaginary Life

Wole SOYINKA (Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka b. 1934)
A Dance of the Forest (1963)
The Interpreters (1965)
Death and the King's Horsemen (1976)

Mark STRAND (b. 1934)
Selected Poems
The Continuous Life
Dark Harbour

Yaakov SHABTAI (1934-1981)
Past Continuous

Reiner KUNZE (b. 1933) Criticism: Ward
Poems
Stories
The Lovely Years (Die Wunderbaren Jahre 1976) an oblique prose work about adolescents at school, at home, and on holiday... --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) p. 29

Cormac McCARTHY (b. 1933) Criticism: Chabon Reference: Cormac McCarthy Society
Blood Meridian (1985)
Suttree (1979)
Child of God (1974)
The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses (1992); The Crossing (1994); Cities of the Plain (1998)
The Road (2006)

Joe ORTON (b. 1933)
The Complete Plays

Philip ROTH (b. 1933) Criticism: Alvarez | Wolcott
Goodbye, Columbus (1959) Criticism: Peden
One star: Portnoy's Complaint (1969) Criticism: Greenfield
My Life as a Man (1974) Criticism: Dickstein
Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue (1985)
The Counterlife (1986)
Patrimony (1990) Criticism: Pinsky
Operation Shylock (1993) Criticism: Thomas

Oxford English Dictionary (1933) Criticism: Van Doren

Nichita STANESCU (1933-1983) Reference: Survey Criticism: Ward
The Still Unborn About the Dead (1975)

Athol FUGARD (b. 1932) Reference: Fisher
A Lesson from Aloes

Allen GROSSMAN (b. 1932)
The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected Etext: Words Taken to Heart

V. S. NAIPAUL (b. 1932) Reference: Nobel Prize Criticism: Weblog
A House for Mr. Biswas (1961)
A Bend in the River (1979)

Edna O'BRIEN (b. 1932) Reference: N.Y. Writers | Pegasos Consider the characters of Edna O'Brien, May Queens whose May Days are always rainy. --Rebecca West, And They All Lived Unhappily Ever After, Times Literary Supplement, July 16, 1974, in The Essential Rebecca West, p. 460
A Fanatic Heart

Aharon APPELFELD (B. 1932) Reference: Bibliography Criticism: Halkin
The Immortal Bartfuss
Badenheim 1939

John UPDIKE (b. 1932) Criticism: Weblog
One star: Rabbit, Run (1961) John Updike's choice of Rabbit Angstrom, in 'Rabbit, Run', was inspired, one of those happy, instinctive accidents than so often shape a literary career. For Rabbit, though a contemporary of the young writer--born, like him, in the early 1930s, and a product, so to speak, of the same world (the area around Reading, Pa.)--was a 'beautiful brainless guy' whose career (as a high school basketball star in a provincial setting) peaked at age 18; in his own wife's view, he was, before their early, hasty marriage, 'already drifting downhill.' --Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review, September 30, 1990
Rabbit Redux (1971)
Rabbit is Rich (1981)
The Witches of Eastwick (1984)
Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Christopher OKIGBO (1932-1967) Reference: Pegasos | Davidson
Labyrinths, with Path of Thunder

Sylvia PLATH (1932-1963) Criticism: O'Rourke | Economist | Hughes Dec. '04 | Yeh | Hughes Nov. '04 | Beam | Romano | Rose | Ward Sylvia Plath -- interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college girl mentality. --Alvy Singer, in 'Annie Hall' (1977)
Poems
The Bell Jar by "Victoria Lucas" (1966)

Walter ABISH (b. 1931) Reference: Levine
Alphabetical Africa
How German Is It
Eclipse Fever
I Am the Dust Under Your Feet

E. L. DOCTOROW (b. 1931) Criticism: Leonard Reference: N.Y. Writers
Ragtime (1975)
The Book of Daniel
World's Fair

Juan GOYTISOLO (b. 1931) Criticism: Jaggi
Space in Motion

John le CARRE (David John Moore Cornwell b. 1931)
One star: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963)

Jay MACPHERSON (b. 1931) Reference: Canadian Women Poets
Poems Twice Told

Toni MORRISON (b. 1931) Reference: Nobel Criticism: Birne When you read Toni Morrison, there's no alienation. It affirms your Americanism. --Mark Lilla, quoted in 'Revisting the Canon Wars' by Rachel Donadio, New York Times Book Review, November 16, 2007, p. 17
Sula (1973)
One star: Song of Solomon (1977)
One star: Beloved (1987)
Jazz (1992)

Alice MUNRO (b. 1931)
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974)

Tomas TRANSTROMER (b. 1931)
Selected Poems Etext: Morning Birds

Sebastien JAPRISOT (Jean-Baptiste Rossi, 1931-2003)
The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartiment tueurs 1962)
A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiancailles 1991)

Donald BARTHELME (1931-1989) Reference: Jessamyn
Forty Stories
The Dead Father

Thomas BERNHARD (1931-1989) Criticism: Ormsby | Baskin | Mitchelmore is an existence without meaning or goal--he does not doubt that this is its true character--bearable or not? --Sven Birkerts, (The New Republic, 1984)
Woodcutters

Chinua ACHEBE (b. 1930) Criticism: Weblog | Ward
One star: Things Fall Apart (1958) Study: Brians
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Arrow of God (1964)

ADUNIS (Ali Ahmad Said, b. 1930) Reference: bio
Selected Poems Etext: Poets

John ARDEN (b. 1930) Reference: Artsworld
Plays

John BARTH (b. 1930) Reference: Edelman
One star: The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
Tidewater Tales (1987)
The Floating Opera
The End of the Road

Harold BRODKEY (b. 1930) Reference: Robot Wisdom
Stories in an Almost Classical Mode

Yoram KANIUK (b. 1930) Reference: President Warfield
His Daughter

Slavomir MROZEK (b. 1930) Criticism: Ward
Tango (1964)
The Ugupu Bird (1968)

Harold PINTER (b. 1930) Reference: Site | Times Topics | Nobel Prize Criticism: Ward They have the shape and feel of well-made plays in which every effect has a cause and every action produces a reaction. But the things they describe--violence, terror, disintegration--are usually dark and irrational. --Fintan O'Toole, 'The New York Review of Books' October 7, 1999 p.31
The Homecoming (1964)
The Dumb Waiter (1966)
The Room (1966)
One star: The Caretaker (1967)

Gary SNYDER (b. 1930) Etext: Poets Reference: Literary Kicks Criticism: Kirby
No Nature: New and Selected Poems

Derek WALCOTT (b. 1930) Reference: Nobel Prize Criticism: Kirsch | Economist
Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958)
One star: Collected Poems (1986)
Omeros (1990)

Nathan ZACH (b. 1930) Criticism: Adelman
Selected Poems

Stanley ELKIN (1930-1995) Reference: 1 Up Info
The Living End

Dan PAGIS (1930-1986) Criticism: Shore
Selected Poems

Hans Magnus ENZENSBERGER (b. 1929) Criticism: Ward Reference: Bloodaxe
One star: Poems for People Who Don't Read Poems (Gedichte. Die Entstehung eines Gedichts 1962)

Alvin FEINMAN (b. 1929)
Poems

John HOLLANDER (b. 1929) Etext: Poets
Reflections on Espionage
Selected Poetry
Tesserae

Richard HOWARD (b. 1929) Criticism: Pritchard | Leithauser | Travis Reference: N.Y. Writers
Untitled Subjects
Findings

Milan KUNDERA (b. 1929) Reference: Muller Criticism: Weblog
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Ursula K. LE GUIN (b. 1929) Reference: Site
The Left Hand of Darkness

Emmanuel LE ROY LADURIE (b. 1929) Reference: Library of Congress
The Territory of the Historian (1979)

John MONTAGUE (b. 1929) Reference: N.Y. Writers
Selected Poems

E. O. WILSON (b. 1929) Criticism: Baggini | Pinker | Goodheart
Sociobiology (1975) Criticism: Bethell Darwin put humanity in its proper place in the animal kingdom. Wilson put human society there, too. --Michael Lind, The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century, National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html

Christa WOLF (b. 1929) Reference: Vance
Cassandra

Guillermo CABRERA Infante (1929-2005) Reference: Gazarian Gautrier | Levine Criticism: Weblog
View of Dawn in the Tropics (Vista del amanecer en el tropico 1964)
Three Trapped Tigers (Tres Tristes Tigres 1967)

Noam CHOMSKY (b. 1928) Etext: Criticism: Weblog among one the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic [that the Iraq War was unnecessary] and the manufacturing of public opinion --Osama bin Laden
Syntactic Structures (1957)

Irving FELDMAN (b. 1928)
New and Selected Poems Etext: Happening

Carlos FUENTES (b. 1928) Criticism: Castillo | Ward
One star: Terra nostra (1975)
A Change of Skin

Gabriel GARCIA Marquez (b. 1928) Reference: autobiography Criticism: Economist | Wood | Anderson | Goldman | Yardley | Paternostro | Fadiman | Van Doren | Ward
Three stars: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) Criticism: Stavans The narrative is a magician's trick in which memory and prophecy, illusion and reality are mixed and often made to look the same. --Robert Kiely, The New York Times Book Review, March 8, 1970
Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)

Donald HALL (b. 1928) Criticism: Moore
The One Day
Old and New Poems

Ferenc JUHASZ (b. 1928) Criticism: Ward
Selected Poems (1970)

William KENNEDY (b. 1928) Reference: N.Y. Writers
Ironweed
The Albany Cycle

Thomas KINSELLA (b. 1928) Etext: Cooney
Peppercanister Poems

Philip LEVINE (b. 1928) Etext: Internet Poetry Archive Criticism: Rafferty
Selected Poems

Laszlo NAGY (b. 1928) Criticism: Ward
Love of the Scorching Wind (1973)

Cynthia OZICK (b. 1928) Criticism: Leonard Reference: complete review
Envy, or Yiddish in America
The Messiah of Stockholm

Robert PIRSIG (b. 1928) Reference: Bohemian Ink
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)

William TREVOR (b. 1928) Reference: Contemporary Authors Having removed himself from his native Ireland, he can write about its imagined people with the same clarity of distance that he commands over his London and provincial characters. His short stories are considerable works of art, but it is probably in his novels that he reaches the highest peak of achivement so far. --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) p. 15
The Love Department (1970)
The Children of Dynmouth (1980)
Collected Stories (1992)

James D. WATSON (b. 1928) Etext: Letter to 'Nature' Reference: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | Miller Criticism: 'Glimpses' | Sims | Rennie | Connor | Scientist | Creager | Hamer
The Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965)
The Double Helix (1968) Deeply hated by feminists because Watson dares to suggest that the male-female distinction originated in nature, in the DNA code itself. --Arthur Herman, The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century, National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html

John ASHBERY (b. 1927) Reference: N.Y. Writers
The Double Dream of Spring
Houseboat Days
Selected Poems
Flow Chart
Hotel Lautreamont
And the Stars Were Shining

Guy DAVENPORT (b. 1927) Criticism: Hoepffner
Tatlin!

Gunter GRASS (b. 1927) Criticism: Weblog | Ward
One star: The Tin Drum (1959) Etext: "The Wide Skirt"
The Flounder (1978)

Ruth Prawer JHABVALA (b. 1927) Reference: Pegasos
Heat and Dust

Galway KINNELL (b. 1927) Reference: Munno
Selected Poems

W. S. MERWIN (b. 1927) Criticism: Davison
Selected Poems

James WRIGHT (b. 1927)
Above the River: The Complete Poems Etext: Poets

John BERGER (b. 1926)
Ways of Seeing (1972)
(1980)

James SALTER (b. 1926) Reference: Dykens
Solo Faces
Light Years

David SHAHAR (b. 1926) Reference: Babelguides
The Palace of Shattered Vessels

John FOWLES (1926-2005) Reference: Goosmann Criticism: Sansom
The Magus (2nd Ed., 1977) In some mysterious way, Conchis, the Magus or magician who inhabits, or, better, infuses, the Greek island where Nicholas goes to teach in a boys' school, becomes the instructor-ally that Alison needs, so that Nicholas finally learns something. Not everything; not enough, perhaps. --Charles Van Doren, The Joy of Reading (1985) p. 170

A. R. AMMONS (Archie Randolph Ammons, 1926-2001) Etext: Poets | International Poetry Forum
Collected Poems
Selected Longer Poems
Sphere: The Form of a Motion

Elizabeth JENNINGS (1926-2001)
Selected Poems Etext: Three poems

James MERRILL (1926-1995) Reference: Wilmington
From the First Nine
The Changing Light at Sandower

Ingeborg BACHMANN (1926-1973) Reference: Pegasos
In the Storm of Roses

Frank O'HARA (1926-1966)
Selected Poems Etext: Poets Criticism: Logan

< 1901-1925



Revised July 1, 2008.

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