Nobel Laureates

The works of poets from Europe, Israel and America. In History and Reality, Stephen Spender writes: "She felt a kind of envy for / Those who stood naked in their truth: / Where to be of her people was / To be one of those millions killed."

A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. In the story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched...

"Published in 1952, Wayward Heroes is part of the body of works for which Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955. It is a masterfully written tragicomedy about the oath-brothers Thorgeir and Thormod, inspired by the old Icelandic sagas Saga of the Sworn Brothers and Saga of Saint Olaf. The brothers fight for glory, raid for treasure, and seduce women against the backdrop of a new cult of Christianity. But where the old sagas depict their heroes...

Pardoned instead of Christ, Barabbas is haunted for the rest of his life. After watching his former lover, Rachel, being stoned to death for her belief in Jesus, Barabbas returns to his life of thievery. Arrested again, he is sent to the sulphur mines and then to gladiator school where he witnesses yet another friend give his life in the name of the Nazarene. It is only at the end, when Barabbas himself faces crucifixion, that he discovers his faith....

The tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some fo the most memorable characters in American literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.

A group of pilots must conquer the savage Andean weather as well as the mechanical shortcomings of early aircraft to establish an air-mail service to South America

This short biography of author and poet Gabriela Mistral describes her childhood and education as a teacher and her works that led to receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in 1945.

A unique evaluation that covers the great dramatist's personal life, art, and theory on tragedy

The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commerical upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. This, the only critical edition of Galsworthy's popular masterpiece, contains detailed notes which are vital to the saga, explaining particularly the contemporary artistic and literary allusions, and slang of the time.