Leenerts, Cynthia A. : George Washington University
Summary
A literature anthology for Freshman Composition, Introduction to Literature or World Literature courses.
Designed to encourage students to read, write, and think critically and globally, this comprehensive collection
of contemporary writing spotlights English as an international literary language. The broad range of texts from
some of the world's finest writers addresses the global development of literature in English and creates an appreciation
for the diversity of an enlarged canon of literature.
Each text is in its original English language form with no translations.
-Allows students to grasp the subtleties of variation within the language.
Global scope of over 85 quality poems, stories, essays and memoirs--Includes selections from motherlands, settler
nations and post-colonial nations.
-Introduces students to a broad selection of readings so that they can enjoy a great deal of post-colonial writing
in a global/cultural context.
Diversity within categories with regard to gender, generation, and ethnicity.
-Invites students to explore similar issues from culturally diverse perspectives.
All selections are complete without condensation or truncation.
-Gives students a sense of completeness of the reading without gaps in plot, characterization, or context.
Thoughtful and provocative exercises and thematic units.
-Provides pedagogical focus for instructors and helps to generate classroom discussions. Encourages students
to answer thought-provoking questions that in turn open a wide range of writing choices.
"Perspectives" apparatus fosters lively group discussions.
-Encourages students to think critically before they read and invites them to research issues they will meet
in the text.
"Consideration of Style" questions in apparatus point out the full range of literary devices, such as images,
symbols, and sound patterns.
-Encourages students to read below the surface so that they can generate better quality papers.
The Common Humanity/ Otherness/Uncommon Humanity "progression" parallels a deep "innocence/experience/higher
innocence" development.
-Enables students to become involved in their readings because they are living or have lived much of the experiences
written about.
Table of Contents
OUR COMMON HUMANITY.
1. Heritage, Family, Community.
It Was a Long Time Before--Leslie Marmon Silko.
Ah Mah--Shirley Geok-Lin Lim. Grandfather at Noon: Lahore, 1957--Julian Samuel. Grandma's Tales--Andrew Lam.
Why a Robin?--Shashi Deshpande. Friend of My Youth--Alice Munro. A Rose in the Heart of New York--Edna O'Brien. My Mother--Jamaica Kincaid.
Anoma--Punyakante Wijenaike.
The Gift--Li-Young Lee.
Goalie--Rudy Thauberger.
Digging--Seamus Heaney.
The Next Life--Peter Ho Davies.
A Family Supper--Kazuo Ishiguro.
It Used to Be Green Once--Patricia Grace.
Jewish Christmas--Faye Moskowitz. The Holiday Season--Jane Shore.
2. Identity and Autonomy.
For My People--Margaret Walker. El Grupo McDonald's--Nick Carbó.
Kicking the Habit--Lawson Fusao Inada.
The Day They Burned the Books--Jean Rhys.
Thread--Stuart Dybek.
Good Girls Are Bad News--Subhadra Sen Gupta.
The Creation--Maxine Clair.
Death by Music--Rukun Advani.
Mother Dressmaking. Flying to Belfast. A Martian Sends a Postcard Home--Craig Raine. Of Rabbi Yose, A Winter Visit, Of Itzig and His Dog--Dannie Abse.
3. Love and Commitment.
Wonderful People--Richard Hagopian.
The Tenant--Bharati Mukherjee.
Epithalamium--Andrew Motion.
The Wedding Feast at Cana--Benjamin Alire Saenz.
The Bridegroom--Ha Jin.
Licks of Love in the Heart of the Cold War--John Updike.
Yellow Woman--Leslie Marmon Silko. Postcard--Margaret Atwood. Incompatibilities--Ted Hughes. Shanti--Vikram Chandra.
OTHERNESS.
4. (Post) Colonization.
'Commonwealth Literature' Does Not Exist--Salman Rushdie.
The Song of Ourselves--Chinua Achebe.
dis poem--Mutabaruka.
Dead Men's Path--Chinua Achebe.
The Lemon Orchard--Alex La Guma.
The Return--Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. In the Shadow of War--Ben Okri. In the Hills--Christine Craig.
And So It Came to Pass--Funso Ayejina. The Coming of Day--Yao Egblewogbe. No Coffin, No Grave--Jared Angira.
Africa Kills Her Sun--Ken Saro-Wiwa.
5. The Immigrant Experience.
Crickets--Robert Olen Butler.
New York Day Women--Edwidge Danticat.
A Wedding in Spring--George Lamming.
Woman with Kite--Chitra Divakaruni. Dinakdakan--Maria Luisa B. Aguilar-Cariño. Assimilation--Eugene Gloria.
Pacific Crossing--Vince Gotera.
Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter--Chitra Divakaruni.
6. Alienation.
Once Upon a Time--Nadine Gordimer.
White Fantasy--Black Fact--Jack Davis.
Village--Estela Portillo Trambley.
Hiroshima. The Northern Ireland Question, Peace--Desmond Egan. Crocodile--Albert Wendt.
The Blue Donkey, Apotheosis--Suniti Namjoshi.
Or Else, the Lightning God--Catherine Lim.
The Loons--Margaret Laurence.
A New Wardrobe for Rainbow Jack--Herb Wharton. The Wife Who Spoke Japanese in Her Sleep--Vivienne Plumb. Chew You Up and Spit You Out--Fay Weldon.
OUR UNCOMMON HUMANITY.
7. Nature, Faith, Spirit.
A Boy in a Snow Shower--James Mackay Brown.
Sweet, Sweet Corn--Garrison Keillor. One of the Wild Beautiful Creatures--N. Scott Momaday.
Atmospheric Phenomenon: The Art of Hurricanes--Victor Hernandez Cruz.
Pantoum of the Great Depression--Donald Justice.
Waiting for a Turn--Ken Lipenga. The Spell and the Ever-Changing Moon--Rukhsana Ahmed.
Easter Sunday Morning--Hazel D. Campbell.
Under the Banyan Tree--R.K. Narayan.
No Music before Mosque--Zebun-Nissa Hamidulla.
The Rain Came--Grace Ogot.
The Miracle--Ba'Bila Mutia.
The Collector of Treasures--Bessie Head.
Midnight Soldiers--Vishwapriya Iyengar.
The Farewell Party--Anita Desai. Poem for the End of the Century--John Haines.
The Season of Phantasmal Peace--Derek Walcott.
