Showing results for "Unknown" in World Literature

One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up?

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the cast of BBC Radio 4's epic full-cast dramatisation. Adapted for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Leo Tolstoy's epic story follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. First broadcast on New Year's Day 2015, the drama also features Alun Armstrong, Natasha Little, David Calder, Phoebe Fox, Sam Reid and Joanna David. Duration: 10 hours approx.

In nine poignant stories spiked with humor and intelligence, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni captures lives at crossroad moments - caught between past and present, home and abroad, tradition, and fresh experience. A widow in California, recently arrived from India, struggles to adapt to a world in which neighbors are strangers and her domestic skills are deemed superfluous in the award-winning "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter".

A rediscovered classic and international bestseller that recounts the gripping tale of a friendship destroyed at the hands of Nazi Germany In this searing epistolary novel, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor brings vividly to life the insidious spread of Nazism through a series of letters between Max, a...

In the heart of Paris, where art and ambition intertwine, the boundaries between genius and madness blur. A tale of creation, obsession, and the quest for perfection, this story dances on the edge of brilliance. The artist, driven by an insatiable desire to capture the unattainable, confronts the fragility of his own vision. As the canvas comes to life, so too does a world where nothing is as it seems, and the cost of true artistry might just be too high. Balzac's story whispers of the fine line between genius and obsession, where the artist's soul is as fragile as the masterpiece he seeks.

Ivan Bunin received the 1933 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing." Aristocrat to the core, Bunin somehow remained connected to the land and people and keenly felt their pulse of life. His acute observations resulted in the accurate and unforgettable characters who populated his writing. His love for punctuation and punctilious choice of words is legendary. Reading Bunin's stories is one of the best ways to understand the mysterious Russian soul and begin to understand one of Russia's greatest periods of literature.

"The unknown masterpiece", or "Le chef-d'œuvre inconnu", is a story by the French author Honoré de Balzac. This short text was of tremendous importance in the world of art, for it holds a groundbreaking reflection about artistic creation: what does completion or failure mean, and how is it that technique does not guarantee either. Paul Cézanne famously said "I am Frenhofer", identifying with the old master around which the story revolves. Pablo Picasso himself was absolutely fascinated by the text, so much that he had his studio moved in the Parisian street named in the story; there, he painted his own masterpiece, Guernica.

A collection of profound and piercing poems from a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize about navigating the modern world in search of beauty that will endure Fever of Unknown Origin opens at a remote crossroads, where the speaker considers the intersection of history, beauty, and destruction: “the...

Ivan Bunin received the 1933 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing." Aristocrat to the core, Bunin somehow remained connected to the land and people and keenly felt their pulse of life. His acute observations resulted in the accurate and unforgettable characters who populated his writing. His love for punctuation and punctilious choice of words is legendary. Reading Bunin's stories is one of the best ways to understand the mysterious Russian soul and begin to understand one of Russia's greatest periods of literature.