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2005 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2005. Events *January 16 – This is the 400th anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes' publication of the first part of ''Don Quixote'' in Spain. *February 25 – Canada Reads selects ''Rockbound'' by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation. *March 26 – The classic U.K. science fiction series ''Doctor Who'' returns to television with a script by Russell T Davies, the executive producer. * April 23 – The Grande Bibliothèque at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec is officially opened. It actually opens on April 30. *June 13 – The poet Dannie Abse is injured and his wife Joan killed in an accident on the M4 in South Wales. *August 15 – An integrated National Library of Norway opens to readers in Oslo for the first time. New books Fiction *Tariq Ali – ''A Sultan in Palermo'' *Rajaa Alsanea – ''Girls of Riyadh'' (بنات الرياض, ''Banat al-Riyadh'') * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
January 16
Events Pre-1600 * 27 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. * 378 – General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán. * 550 – Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison. * 929 – Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III establishes the Caliphate of Córdoba. * 1120 – Crusades: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. * 1362 – Saint Marcellus's flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea. * 1537 – Bigod's Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins. * 1547 – Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia, replacing the 264-year-old Grand Duchy of Moscow with the Tsardom of Russia. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of in 2019, and the metropolitan area had an estimated population of in 2021. During the Viking Age the area was part of Viken. Oslo was founded as a city at the end of the Viking Age in 1040 under the name Ánslo, and established as a ''kaupstad'' or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada. The city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814 reduced its influence. After being destroyed by a fire in 1624, during the reign of King Christian IV, a new city was built closer to Akershus Fortress and named Christiania in honour of the king. It became a municipality ('' formannskapsdistrikt'') on 1 January 1838. The city fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Long Long Way
''A Long Long Way'' is a novel by Irish author Sebastian Barry, set during the First World War. Plot synopsis The young protagonist Willie Dunne leaves Dublin to fight voluntarily for the Allies as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, leaving behind his prospective bride Gretta and his policeman father. He is caught between the warfare playing out on foreign fields (mainly at Flanders) and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising. Reception The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005. In a 2009 US interview, author |
Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry (born 5 July 1955) is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He was named Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2019–2021. He is noted for his lyrical literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers. Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. He has been twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels ''A Long Long Way'' (2005) and ''The Secret Scripture'' (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel, '' On Canaan's Side'', was longlisted for the Booker. In January 2017, Barry was awarded the Costa Book of the Year prize for '' Days Without End'', becoming the first novelist to win the prestigious prize twice. Early life Barry was born in Dublin. His mother was acclaimed actress Joan O'Hara. He was educated at Catholic University School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he read English and Latin. Work His academic pos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sea (novel)
''The Sea'' is a 2005 novel by John Banville. His thirteenth novel, it won the 2005 Booker Prize. Plot summary The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those he loved as a child and as an adult. The novel is written as a reflective journal; the setting always in flux, wholly dependent upon the topic or theme Max feels inclined to write about. Despite the constant fluctuations, Max returns to three settings: his childhood memories of the Graces—a wealthy middle-class family living in a rented cottage home, the "Cedars"—during the summer holidays; the months leading up to the death of his wife, Anna; and his present stay at the Cedars cottage home in Ballyless—where he has retreated since Anna's death. These three settings are heavily diced and jumbled together for the novel's entire duration. Max's final days with Anna were awkward; Max does not know how to act with his soon-to-be-dea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Banville
William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry James are the two real influences on his work. Banville has won the 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the 2003 International Nonino Prize, the 2005 Booker Prize, the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007, Italy made him a ' of the Ordine della Stella d'Italia (essentially a knighthood) in 2017. He is a former member of Aosdána, having voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer. Born at Wexford in south-east Ireland, Banville published his first novel, ''Nightspawn'', in 1971. A second, ''Birchwood'', followed two years later. "The R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tropical Fish (book)
''Tropical Fish'' is a short story collection, published in 2005, by Ugandan author Doreen Baingana. It revolves around the lives of a family based in Entebbe, Uganda. It follows Christine, Patti and Rosa the daughters of a relatively well off family whose father, a senior government official, becomes an alcoholic and loses everything starting with his job. Through it all the mother has to support her family on her own. It follows the lives of the three sisters. It touches religious influence in Africa, boarding school life in missionary schools, first love, superstition, inevitably AIDS, love across the colour with a sugar daddy syndrome, the sense of alienation that comes with migrating to another country (USA) and that of displacement after coming back home. Rosa, the eldest sister, was promiscuous, she died of AIDS. Patti the middle sister, turned into a born-again Christian. And Christine the youngest went to Los Angeles, came back eight years later to pick up a job amidst the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doreen Baingana
Doreen Baingana (born 1966) is a Ugandan writer and literary arts manager. Her short story collection, ''Tropical Fish,'' won the Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction in 2003 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first book, Africa Region in 2006. Stories in it were finalists for the Caine Prize in 2004 and 2005. She has received many other awards. She is the co-founder and director of thMawazo Africa Writing Institutebased in Entebbe, Uganda. Early life and education Raised in Entebbe, Doreen Baingana attended Gayaza High School and obtained a law degree from Makerere University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland, College Park. Immediately thereafter, she was appointed writer-in-residence at thJiménez-Porter Writers House Career Baingana won the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction in 2003 for her collection ''Tropical Fish''. It was published by the University of Massachusetts Press and Broadway Books in the US, Oshun Books in South Africa, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Aylett
Steve Aylett (born 1967 in Bromley, United Kingdom) is an English author of satirical science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream. According to the critic Bill Ectric, "much of Aylett’s work combines the bawdy, action-oriented style of Voltaire with the sedentary, faux cultivated style of Peacock." Stylistically, Aylett is often seen as a difficult writer. As the critic Robert Kiely suggests, his books tend to be "baroque in their density, speed, and finely crafted detail; they are overcrowded, they dazzle and distort and wait for us to catch up with their narrative world." Although Aylett is best known for his novels, and for his transmedial metafiction ''Lint'', he has also created comics, stand-up, performance, music, movies, and art, often working in appropriative and other avant-garde modes. Aylett is also one of the few UK authors associated with the largely US-based Bizarro literary movement. Writing Beerlight Aylett's Beerlight series includes the novels ''The Crime Stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Harmony Silk Factory
''The Harmony Silk Factory'' (2005) is Tash Aw's critically acclaimed first novel, set in 1940s British-ruled Malaya, which is now called Malaysia. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Whitbread Book Awards for First Novel Award. The novel incorporates some historical events, and its characters may temporarily take the roles of real people, for example Johnny Lim acts as Lai Teck in the Batu Caves massacre, though there is otherwise little similarity between them. Synopsis Between the wars, Johnny Lim becomes a successful businessman running Tiger Tan’s textile shop in Kampar, a town near Ipoh in the tin-mining Kinta Valley of Malaysia. He marries Snow Soong, the beautiful daughter of TK Soong, the richest man in the valley. They go on a belated honeymoon to the mysterious Seven Maidens islands. Accompanying them are Kunichika Mamoru, a Japanese academic, who will become head of the Kempeitai, the secret police, during the Japanese occupation; Peter Wormw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tash Aw
Tash Aw, whose full name is Aw Ta-Shi (; born 4 October 1971) is a Malaysian writer living in London. Biography Born in 1971 in Taipei, Taiwan, to Malaysian parents, Tash Aw returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the age of two, and grew up there. Like many Malaysians, he had a multilingual upbringing, speaking Chinese and Cantonese at home, and Malay and English at school. He eventually relocated to England to study law at Jesus College, Cambridge, and at the University of Warwick before moving to London to write. He completed the MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in 2003. His first novel, ''The Harmony Silk Factory'', was published in 2005. It was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). It also made it to the long-list of the world's prestigious 2007 International Impac Dublin Award and the Guardian Firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Irving Wortis
Edward Irving Wortis (born December 23, 1937), better known by the pen name Avi,Sandra Q. Williams, American Library Association: . November/December 2005 is an American author of young adult and children's literature. He is a winner of the Newbery Medal and twice one of the runners-up (Newbery Honor). Biography Avi and his twin sister were born in Brooklyn, New York to Joseph Wortis, an American-Jewish psychiatrist of Russian-Jewish and Alsatian-Jewish descent, and Helen Wortis, a social worker. When he was one year old, his sister gave him the nickname "Avi".About Avi avi-writer.com Two of Avi's grandfathers were writers, and one grandmother was a playwright. In interviews, he recalled his mother reading to him and his sister every night, and going to the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
