Novel

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Caribbean

In the Caribbean, as in many areas of the world, one of the major trends was the depiction of characters caught in the net of politics or an unjust social order.

In A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), for example, Trinidad-born writer V. S. Naipaul describes the seemingly overwhelming odds against a poor father, trapped between a smothering Hindu family and the colonial world, as he tries to possess a home of his own. Naipaul’s later works are descriptions of what freedom can be like amidst the political chaos of new societies.

Many other Caribbean novelists gained importance in the late 20th century, including Maryse Condé of Guadalupe (Ségou, 1984; translated 1987), Patrick Chamoiseau of Martinique (Texaco, 1992; translated 1997), and Earl Lovelace of Trinidad (Salt, 1996). Writers of Caribbean ancestry but living outside the region have also emerged as major novelists, including José Yglesias (A Wake in Ybor City, 1963), Nicholasa Mohr (Nilda, 1973), and Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991).

See also Caribbean Literature.

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Africa

In the 20th century, the effects of colonialism were important issues for authors in Africa, where many nations gained their independence from colonial powers. Mission Terminée (1957; Mission to Kala, 1958) by Mongo Beti of Cameroon tells of a young African man educated in France who has trouble fitting in when he returns home. Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe of Nigeria describes the effect of European settlers on traditional African society. In The River Between (1965) and A Grain of Wheat (1967), Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes about the Mau Mau Rebellion (1952-1956), during which a group of the Kikuyu people began a military campaign against the British, who controlled Kenya at the time.

Even after most African nations had gained independence, the aftereffects of colonialism remained a concern. In South Africa a major issue was apartheid, an official policy of racial separation that the government endorsed from 1948 to the early 1990s. In several books, including A Walk in the Night (1962) and And a Threefold Cord (1964), Alex La Guma writes about the effects of apartheid on people’s everyday lives. Nadine Gordimer addresses apartheid in The Conservationist (1974) and Burger’s Daughter (1979). The Life and Times of Michael K (1983) by J. M. Coetzee is a frightening vision of a desolate, brutal South Africa.

Other African novels examined various aspects of society. Senegalese writer Ousmane Sembène fictionalized a railroad workers’ strike of 1947 and 1948 in Les bout de bois de Dieu (1960; God’s Bits of Wood, 1962). In Guélwaar (1996) he wrote about politics, economics, and religion in postindependence Africa. Autobiographical novels such as The Wanderers (1971) and A Question of Power (1973) by South Africans Es’kia Mphahlele and Bessie Head, respectively, deal with themes of exile. Ayi Kwei Armah of Ghana chronicles precolonial Africa in Two Thousand Seasons (1973), The Healers (1978), and Osiris Rising (1995). In The Promised Land (1966) Kenyan writer Grace Ogot explores the issue of marriage. Novels such as The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Gwendolen (1989), and Kehinde (1994) by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta look at the place of women in society.

See also African Literature.

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Middle East

The Middle East has two 20th-century traditions in the novel: the Arabic-language tradition and the Hebrew-language tradition.

In the Arab world, the novel form emerged only in the early 20th century. One of the earliest Arabic novels is considered to be Zaynab (1913; Zainab, 1989), by Egyptian writer Muhammad Husayn Haykal. Other important authors of the early part of the century include Tawfiq al-Hakim (Awdat al-ruh, 1933; The Return of the Spirit, 1990) and Taha Husayn (Du’a’ al-karawan, 1934; The Call of the Curlew, 1980) of Egypt, Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad (al-Raghif, 1939; The Loaf) of Lebanon, and Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid (Jalal Khalid, 1928) and Dhu al-Nun Ayyub (al-Duktur Ibrahim, 1939; Doctor Ibrahim) of Iraq.

The greatest Arabic novelist of the mid-20th century was Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, whose dozens of novels include the celebrated al-Thulathiyya (The Cairo Trilogy), which chronicles the experiences of an Egyptian family. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. Female writers became a force in Arabic literature in midcentury. In their novels, Layla Ba’labakki of Lebanon (Ana ahya, 1958; I Am Alive), Nawal El Saadawi of Egypt (Mudhakkirat tabibah, 1958; Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, 1988), Ghadah al-Samman of Syria (Kawabis Bayrut, 1976; Beirut Nightmares), and others addressed social and political life in the Arab world.

In the late 20th century, Arabic writers continued to use the novel to explore people in a political context in Arab society. Major novelists included Hanna Minah of Syria, who promotes workers’ causes in his books, and Isma’il Fahd Isma’il, who dramatizes the plight of the dispossessed masses. Ilyas Khuri deals with the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) in Rihlat Ghandi al-saghir (1989; The Journey of Little Gandhi, 1994).

Writers in Hebrew adopted the novel form in the late 19th century, when Mendele Mokher Sefarim of Russia became a leading writer. Perhaps his best-known novel is Kitsur mas’ot Binyamin ha-shelishi (1878; The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third, 1949), which was originally written in Yiddish but was translated into Hebrew in 1896. World War I (1914-1918) and the Russian Revolution of 1917 had devastating effects on Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and by the late 1920s most Hebrew-language writers were working in British-controlled Palestine. The preeminent writer of the period was Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who eventually won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966.

With the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948, a generation of writers who had grown up in the new land and knew little of Jewish life in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe was thrust into prominence. S. Yizhar’s war novel Days of Ziklag focuses on the inner lives of these young people as well as on the landscape of their native land. In the 1960s many novelists began to question traditional ways. In books such as Mikha'el sheli (1968; My Michael, 1972) and Menuhhah nekhonah (1982; A Perfect Peace, 1986), Amos Oz wrote about individuals having trouble keeping traditional customs.

Another major topic for Jewish writers in the Middle East was the Holocaust, the mass killing of Jews by German Nazis that occurred during World War II (1939-1945). More than 5 million European Jews perished in the Holocaust. Aharon Appelfeld addresses the Holocaust by examining periods directly before and after the war. His works explore people’s denial of Jewish identity before the war, and their inability to escape the memory of the Holocaust even years after the war’s end. Appelfeld’s books include Badenhaim, ‘ir nofesh (1975; Badenheim 1939, 1980), Ha-Kutonet veha-pasim (1983; Tzili: The Story of a Life, 1983), and Mesilat barzel (1991; The Iron Tracks, 1998).

See also Arabic Literature; Hebrew Literature.

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India

In India, precursors to the novel had appeared in ancient times, and authors such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (Ananda Math, 1882) helped define the national consciousness through their novels before the 20th century. In the early 20th century, Premchand was a major novelist. His works vividly described life in the heartland of central India. In the 1920s and 1930s the novels of Mulk Raj Anand described the situation of India’s poor and dispossessed. R. K. Narayan, in novels such as The Financial Expert (1952) and The Guide (1958), wrote about the middle-class Indian’s position in society.

One major concern in 20th-century Indian literature was the partition of the country into two nations: India and Pakistan. Many novels, such as Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956) and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man (1988; later published as Cracking India, 1991), evoked directly the violence and disintegration of partition. When partition was not the primary subject of novels, it was often featured as a major element of the setting. Anita Desai set Clear Light of Day (1980), a novel about a Delhi family, against the background of partition.

Indian novelists have written in dozens of languages, but English-language writing was one of the strongest traditions in the late 20th century. British novelist Salman Rushdie, who was born in India, created a great controversy in 1988 with his publication of the novel The Satanic Verses, which was banned in several Islamic countries because many Muslims considered it an attack on the Qu’ran, the prophet Muhammad, and the Islamic faith. Vikram Seth chronicled a family story in A Suitable Boy (1993). Arundhati Roy was widely acclaimed for The God of Small Things (1997), a family saga that won the Booker Prize, Britain’s highest literary honor.

See also Indian Literature.

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China

In China, the 20th century marked the novel’s emergence as an important form for the first time. Many of the major early novels, such as T’ai yang chao tsai Sang-kan ho shang (1948; The Sun Shines over the Sangkan River, 1954) by Ding Ling, deal with agrarian reforms. Government officials often dictated the subject matter, as with Chuang ye shi (1960; The Builders, 1964) by Liu Qing, which portrays the idealized character of an utterly selfless, dedicated “socialist man.” Outside China a literature of dissent appeared in the 1950s. Notable are Eileen Chang’s novel Yang ge (1954; The Rice-Sprout Song, 1955) and Chen Ruoxi’s Yin xianzhang (1976; The Execution of Mayor Yin, 1978).

Not until the mid-1980s did prominent writers and cultural leaders begin to insist on the apolitical qualities of literature—that is, to claim that creative works should be judged by purely artistic standards and that writers should not necessarily be expected to shoulder the moral burdens of the Chinese people and history in their work. Many writers, including Ah Cheng, Zhang Chengzhi, Mo Yan, and Zheng Wanlong, became well known through film adaptations of their work.

See also Chinese Literature.

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