# Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
Xu Sanguan finds himself running low on money again and goes to sell blood. At the blood station, he coincidentally finds Genlong, whom he had not seen for ten years. Xu learns that Ah Fang is in poor health after his bladder had burst from drinking too much water. The two men head to Victory Restaurant for a meal afterwards, but Genlong falls ill and dies. The doctors say Genlong died from a cerebral hemorrhage, but Xu suspects Genlong sold too much blood.
Back at the countryside where Yile and Erle's production brigades work, Yile becomes sick. Erle carries his brother to the ferry and they both return to town where Yile can receive treatment. It is revealed that Yile contracted hepatitis and must travel to Shanghai for proper treatment. Erle also falls ill from a flu and is sent to hospital. Xu Sanguan goes around the village borrowing money and gathers enough to send Yile and Xu Yulan to Shanghai. He plans to meet them in Shanghai and resorts to selling blood once again.
Xu Sanguan sets off for Shanghai, selling blood at multiple hospitals along his journey. He grows increasingly weak from the practice and is hospitalized for a period of time. Xu Sanguan manages to hitch a ride on a barge, and he befriends the two brothers operating the vessel, Laixi and Laishun. Xu travels with them for several days and the three sell blood along the way. Eventually, Xu parts ways with the brothers and reaches Shanghai, where he finds Yile is alive and recovering well.


# Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
Some years later, Yile, Erle and Sanle have all gotten stable jobs, gotten married, had children and moved into their own houses. One day, Xu Sanguan passes Victory Restaurant and feels the urge to sell blood. But this time, he is rejected as he is deemed too old. Xu becomes worried that he can no longer sell blood to support his family when in need. But Xu Yulan, Yile, Erle, and Sanle remind him that he doesn't need to sell blood anymore for the tough times have passed. The novel ends with Xu Yulan and Xu Sanguan having a meal of fried pork livers and yellow rice wine at the Victory Restaurant.
*Chronicle of a Blood Merchant* describes the suffering of the lower class which took place during the most turbulent time in Chinese history, and creates a sorrowful atmosphere with a touch of gentleness. Blood is the main element, which builds up throughout the majority of the story. The protagonist sells his blood twelve times in the story for many reasons, including cultural taboo, food, and sacrifices. Xu Sanguan sells his blood to overcome crises he faces in his life, to a point where he believes that selling blood could overcome any crisis. However, at the end of the story Xu Sanguan couldn\'t sell his blood anymore because he\'s too old and the quality of his blood is not accessible to anyone.


# Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
- **Xu Sanguan** (许三观): The protagonist, a cart-pusher in a silk factory in a small rural town. He had to sell his blood because his meager salary is not enough to sustain his family.
- **Xu Yulan** (许玉兰): Xu Sangua's wife, a pretty young woman \"Fried Dough Queen\", She became a housewife after having three sons.
- **Yile** (一乐): The eldest son of Xu Sanguan.
- **Erle** (二乐): The second son of Xu Sanguan.
- **Sanle** (三乐): The youngest son of Xu Sanguan.
- **He Xiaoyong** (何小勇): Xu Yulan\'s ex-lover, who is supposedly Yile's biological father.
- **Lin Fenfang** (林芬芳): Xu Sanguan had an affair with Lin Fenfang when he found out that Yile was not his own son.
- **Blood Chief Li** (李血头): The bald man who\'s in charge of buying blood for the hospital. He\'s the one that decides who gets to sell blood and who doesn\'t.
- **Ah Fang** and **Genlong** (阿方 根龙): Xu Sanguan accompanies them to the hospital for his first blood sale.


# Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
According to Jeffrey Wasserstrom, *Chronicle of a Blood Merchant* was \"hailed by many as one of the best books published in China in the 1990s.\" Richard King addressed Gang Yue\'s comparison to Lu Xun by stating that \"Yu Hua's small-town everyman becomes a figure of a dignity to which Ah Q could never aspire\". King also praised the novel\'s construction. The book was praised in *The Seattle Times*.as a \"rare achievement in literature.... Xu Sanguan is a character that reflects not just a generation but the soul of a people.\" Michael Laris of *The Washington Post* argued, "The epic \-- and at times crude \-- stories of struggle and survival in \... Chronicle of a Blood Merchant offer unforgettable images of cruelty and kindness, Yu Hua\'s characters are torn between their animal instincts and their humanity. What Yu Hua brings to these narratives is a steely willingness to take things too far."
Ha Jin, author of *Waiting*, described Yu Hua as a \"major contemporary novelist\" and stated that the latter \"writes with a cold eye but a warm heart. His novels are ingeniously structured and exude a mythical aura. Though unmistakably Chinese, they are universally resonant." Dai Sijie, author of *Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress* (2000), called it a \"wrenching and blackly humorous tale. Long after I closed the book, the character Xu Sanguan has remained stubbornly impressed upon my heart."


# Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
Wang Ping, author of *Foreign Devil* (1996) and *Aching for Beauty* (2000), wrote, "*Chronicle of a Blood Merchant* takes us straight to the heartland of China---the towns, streets, courtyards, kitchens, and bedrooms where ordinary Chinese live. They may not be great warriors or politicians, but their courageous efforts in living a life with hope and dignity make them true heroes. This book is a gem." Nola Theiss, author of Kliatt, argued, "The story is filled with strange attitudes and behaviors, which give insight to this peculiar time and place. Yu Hua is considered one of the most important young writers in China today and his writing carries a truth that is typical of fables and parables."
A Korean-language film adaptation *(Chronicle of a Blood Merchant)* directed by Ha Jung-woo premiered in South Korea on January 15, 2015.
Instead of setting the background in rural China, the film has been localized and the setting is shifted right after the Korean War. Leaving out the political movements, the film emphasizes more on the storyline of protagonists' daily life.
In 2013, a stage play *Chronicle of a Blood Merchant* reworked by Tang Wai-Kit was premiered by the We Draman Group in Hong Kong.
- To Live by Yu Hua (Tr. by Michael Berry) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua (Tr. by Andrew F. Jones) Reviewed by Richard King, MCLC Resource Center Publication, March 2004
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# The Quiet War
***The Quiet War*** is a 2008 science fiction novel written by Paul McAuley. It was initially published by Gollancz on 16 October 2008. The novel was an Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominee in 2009.
*The Quiet War* is a space opera set in the 23rd Century. Some of the Earth\'s population has fled the planet due to war and catastrophic climate change. In the aftermath of climatic disaster and massive loss of life, humanity has consolidated into three superpowers that control the planet.
The population that fled the planet initially colonized the Moon and Mars, but these colonies were destroyed by hostile forces from Earth. The pioneers---or \"Outers\" as they came to be known---eventually settled among Jupiter\'s moons Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede, and Saturn\'s moons Dione, Enceladus, and Mimas. The Outers have survived by using highly advanced genetic engineering and their pure determination for a free life. They have formed a loose form of democracy which over the course of centuries has been dominated by long-lived humans who still remember the events which caused them to flee Earth.
The Earthly superpowers have struggled to rebuild the planet. The most powerful and aggressive superpower is Greater Brazil, a nation controlling both South America and the remains of North America. North America has been devastated by climate change, which caused the destruction of civilization there, with few cities left populated. Greater Brazil has taken over this desert continent and forced the population to live by their \"green\" politics whereby the population lives in cities while the open land is being restored to a pristine natural state.
Greater Brazil is a corrupt state run by a handful of powerful families; it is anti-democratic and culturally conservative. It is semi-feudal; people who are not related to the ruling families by blood or marriage are essentially like medieval serfs. Greater Brazil is threatened by the very existence of the democratic and technologically dynamic Outer colonies, while at the same time greedy for the benefits of Outer technology. Genetic engineering is a particularly touchy subject for Greater Brazil, which interprets extensive \"cutting\", as they call it, to be against their green political and religious philosophies. For all of these reasons, Greater Brazil wishes to subdue the Outers and bring them under their control.


# The Quiet War
The novel follows the lives of a small set of individuals, all of them from Greater Brazil, who become caught up in the events set in motion by Greater Brazil\'s designs for the Outer colonies. These central characters include an arrogant but brilliant \"gene wizard\"; a space fighter pilot to whom the gene wizard gives extraordinary powers; a cloned assassin designed by the gene wizard to infiltrate the Outers; a soil biologist who is recruited for a joint Earth-Outer goodwill project; and an unprincipled, ambitious weasel of a man who does his superiors\' dirty work.
The events of the novel were followed up in 2009 with McAuley\'s *Gardens of the Sun*.
Eric Brown of *The Guardian* noted \"Few writers conjure futures as convincingly as McAuley: his latest novel deftly combines bold characterisation, a thorough understanding of political complexity, and excellent science - in this case the biology of terraforming. It\'s the 23rd century and humanity has split into two competing blocs: the citizens of Earth, ruled by a few powerful families, and the Outers, the descendants of dissidents who fled the repressive regimes of Earth and settled on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. After a slow start, the novel picks up pace to present a future that is wondrous yet marred by human frailty\".
Abigail Nussbaum of *Strange Horizons* wrote \"between the flatness of its narrative and the predictability of its characters, there\'s not much to feel passionate about in The Quiet War, and for the first part in a series this may be a fatal flaw. The novel is undercut by not amounting to a single story---it ends as the war ends, but with the solar system still in turmoil, the political situation and ultimate disposition of Earth and the Outer colonies still unclear, and our characters hanging in limbo. On the other hand, the novel\'s ending isn\'t nearly open-ended enough to create the suspense that\'ll whet its readers\' appetite for the next installment, and since the story itself is not much more than enjoyable, I for one don\'t feel any compulsion to read the next chapter. \".


# My Father's Wives
***My Father\'s Wives*** is a novel by the Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa published in 2008 by Arcadia Books (London, England). It was translated by Daniel Hahn from Portuguese: *As Mulheres do Meu Pai*, published in 2007 by Editora Língua Geral (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Publicações Dom Quixote (Lisbon, Portugal).
Upon his death, the famous Angolan composer Faustino Manso left seven widows and eighteen children. His youngest daughter, Laurentina, a filmmaker, tries to reconstruct the late musician\'s turbulent life. In *My Father's Wives*, reality and fiction run side by side, the former feeding into the latter. However, in the territories Agualusa crosses, fiction plays a part in reality too. The four characters in the novel which the author is writing as he travels accompany him from Luanda, the Angolan capital to Benguela and Namibe (now Moçâmedes). They cross the Namibian sands and their ghost towns, reaching Cape Town. They carry on to Maputo, then Quelimane beside the Bons Sinais River, and then to the island of Mozambique. They cross landscapes that border dreams, landscapes from which -- here and there -- the strangest characters emerge. *My Father's Wives* is a novel about women, music and magic. These pages herald the rebirth of Africa, a continent afflicted by terrible problems but blessed with a talent for music, by the ever-renewed strength of its women and the secret power of ancient gods.
In *The Independent*, Boyd Tonkin called the work \"rich in historical sidelights and deft character-sketches.\" He continues, \"A radiant humour and humanity speeds his novel through its picaresque twists and turns.\"
In *The Guardian*, Jennie Erdal cites \"an artful mix of fact, reportage, politics, poetry and personal confession, not to mention mountainous dollops of sheer unadulterated invention - all dispatched in short episodic chapters and musical, rhythmic prose.\" She praises further: \"Agualusa, master of multiple perspectives, remains impressively in control. The result is a giant melting pot, exuding intoxicating fumes of love and death that permeate the exotic, chaotic sweep of southern Africa.\"


# Brothers (Yu novel)
***Brothers*** (simplified Chinese: 兄弟; pinyin: Xiōngdì) is the longest novel written by the Chinese novelist Yu Hua, in total of 76 chapters, separately published in 2005 for the part 1 (of the first 26 chapters) and in 2006 for part 2 (of the rest 50 chapters) by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House. This was Yu Hua\'s first novel after a decade or dormancy from writing and publishing works. It has over 180 thousand characters in Chinese, more than the 100 thousand characters that were originally planned for the book. It intertwines tragedy and comedy, and Yu Hua himself admits that the novel is personally his favorite literary work. *Brothers* was a new realm of literature for Yu Hua, with the novel often being described as extremely crude and expletive. *Brothers* has experienced great success with nearly 1 million copies sold in China. By 2019, Yu Hua\'s works had been published in 38 countries and translated into 35 different languages. This success may be contributed to his success publicity tour to gain attraction towards the novel after his hiatus from writing. While reception among Chinese critics was generally negative, the novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and awarded France\'s Prix Courrier International in 2008. It was translated into English by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas in 2009, a couple from the Middle Eastern department at Duke University.
The story of the novel revolves around the step-brotherhood between Baldy Li and Song Gang who are the protagonists. Their life that has been of absurd and tragedy throughout China\'s history from the 1960s to the early period of Chinese Economic Reform serves as the main plot. The division of the novel into two parts is contextually on the basis of the death of Li Lan who is the biological mother of Baldy Li and the step-mother of Song Gang. The first part primarily focuses on their childhood, especially during the Cultural Revolution with the collapse of their reorganized family and the tragedy of Song Fanping, the biological father of Song Gang and the Step-father of Baldy Li. The second part focuses on their adulthood with different life trajectories, especially during the early period of Chinese Economic Reform that formulates the mixture of absurdity and tragedy.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
As shown in the translator\'s preface, even though *Brothers* was published in 2005 and 2006, Yu Hua \"originally conceived of the idea for the novel as early as 1995\". The process of his writing was not well-off at the beginning. However, during his seven-month trip to the United States and France in 2003, he was \"inspired\" to go back to the project while China was stuck in the \"beauty-pageant fever\". The \"Miss World competition\", \"Tourism Queen International pageant\", \"National Contest of the Beauty of the Gray-headed for contestants over fifty-five\", and \"Miss Artificial Beauty pageant for plastic surgery recipients\" are representative of the trend of absurdity in China that encouraged Yu Hua for the continuation of the novel that is of the reality of absurdity. Turns out, the reality of absurdity is demonstrated in the novel, especially in Part 2 with a fictional event called \"National Virgin Beauty Competition\".
Yu Hua had expressed in an interview with Zhang Qinghua that he wanted to express some level of chaos in *Brothers*, which had characterized his writing throughout the 1980s to the present. The Cultural Revolution plays a major role in the novel, particularly in Part 1. The brothers have to navigate their way through the chaotic times of the political movement that happened in this time period. Yu Hua himself came of age during the Cultural Revolution. He said in the interview, \"The Cultural Revolution was my formative experience, from the age of seven to seventeen, which of course would leave a significant impact\". His view of violence also heavily influenced the writing of the book. He mentioned that the scene where Song Fanping - one of the main characters in the novel - was being beaten to death, was influenced by his own witness of an individual being beaten to death by the head of the revolutionary committee. The background of the author and of the Cultural Revolution with violence is significant because much of what happens in the book reflects the chaos that accompanied it.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
*Brothers* describes the step-brotherhood between Baldy Li and Song Gang. Their life of childhood and adolescence accompanied by their parents, Li Lan and Song Fanping, as a reorganized family amidst the rising and falling during the Culture Revolution Period is depicted in Part 1. Their life of adulthood with different living trajectories and destines during the early period of China\'s Opening-up is depicted in Part 2.
**Part 1**.
Before the birth of Baldy Li, his biological father falls into the cesspool and drowns himself while peeping at women\'s butts in a public latrine. When Baldy Li becomes a teenager, he is caught and marched by Poet Zhao and Writer Liu as punishment for peeking at five women\'s butts in a latrine. The mother of Baldy Li, Li Lan, is ashamed, resulting in her bitter muttering about her son -- \"A chip off the old block\". Even though Baldy Li\'s good name is ruined, he begins to sell his glimpse of the naked bottom of Lin Hong, who is the most beautiful woman in Liu Town, in exchange of house-special noodles.
Li Lan was extremely distressed and afraid of losing face due to the shameful death of her husband, resulting in the long-term migraines after giving birth to Baldy Li. She shuts the door to the public and becomes isolated while raising Baldy Li. Song Fanping -- the man who is always nice to Li Lan and brings the shit-covered dead body of the father of Baldy Li back to her -- is an exception. When Song Fanping\'s wife passes away and Baldy Li is about seven, Li Lan and Song Fanping get married. Song Fanping, Li Lan, Baldy Li, and Song Gang -- the son of Song Fanping become a new blended family.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
One year after their marriage, Li Lan\'s migraines get worse. Song Fanping asks Li Lan to go to Shanghai for better medical treatment. Song Fanping takes care of Baldy Li and Song Gang himself. With the arrival of the Cultural Revolution, Song Fanping is overthrown because he is born into the landowning class. Song Fanping begins sweeping the school with red plaques around his neck, Badly Li translates these plaques according to Song Fanping\'s lessons about landlord being similar to Chairman Mao. Song Fanping is tortured and locked up in a warehouse. The kids have to take care of themselves while being bullied by their peers.
Song Fanping escapes from the warehouse and tries to pick Li Lai up in Shanghai as he promised, but he is beaten and tortured to death by the Red Guards at the bus depot of Liu Town. \"How can people be this vicious?\", says Mama Su, who witnesses Song Fanping\'s death.
No one dares touch Song Fanping\'s body for Baldy Li and Song Gang, except a man named Tao Qing who helps the kids bring Song Fanping\'s dead body to their home. When Li Lan comes back from Shanghai and notices the death of her husband, she remains strong and handles his death. Li Lan purchases a coffin and brings his body to his birth town where Song Gang is picked up by his grandfather to live in the countryside.
Li Lan remains loyal and steadfast for seven years after the death of Song Fanping by refusing to wash her hair. By the time Baldy Li is caught because of peeking five women\'s butts in a latrine like his father, Li Lan worries about Baldy Li\'s future and realizes that she is dying. She then takes care of Baldy Li\'s orphan aid with Tao Qing and prepares her death affairs and visits Song Fanping\'s grave for the Qingming holiday. She is accompanied by both Baldy Li and Song Gang at the very last moment of her life. She requests Song Gang to take care of Baldy Li by entrusting the boys to remain brothers and to always be fair by splitting. Song Gang makes his promise.
**Part 2**.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
Soon after Li Lan\'s death, Song Gang\'s grandfather passes away as well. Song Gang then moves back to Liu Town and lives with Baldy Li. Baldy Li works at the Good Works Factory, and Song Gang works at the metal factory.
When Baldy Li is appointed factory director, he decides to woo Lin Hong with Song Gang\'s assistance. Lin Hong is sick of Baldy Li\'s notorious reputation but interested in Song Gang\'s grace and elegance. Song Gang reciprocates these feelings for Lin Hong. Eventually, Song Gang and Lin Hong get married. The following day of their marriage, Baldy Li goes to the hospital for a vasoligation with the goal of demonstrating his loyalty and steadfastness to Lin Hong.
Baldy Li gets heart-broken but produces a profit miracle one after another at the Good Works Factory made up of disabled men. He then resigns and decides to run his own processing business. After he collects money for capital accumulation from several people in Liu Town and requires them for business preparation, he goes to Shanghai to seek business opportunities. However, he fails. When he comes back to Liu Town, he cannot make a living but asks Song Gang for relief. Lin Hong is unhappy about the reunion of Song Gang and Baldy Li, thus Song Gang severs his connection with Baldy Li once more.
Baldy Li wants to go back to working at the Good Works Factory, but his request is rejected due to his unauthorized resignation that brought shame to Tao Qing. He thus protests in front of the county government building a scrap accumulation by sorting the junk. By accident, he begins to make money via selling the accumulated scraps and gets rich. He begins to return the debt to the town people he accumulated capital from with interests, he asks if they would like to join his newest business venture and heads to Japan for \"junk suits\" and speak with other businesses to become richer.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
In the following five years, Baldy Li becomes a real man of wealth by running a real estate business in Liu Town. Nonetheless, Song Gang becomes unemployed. Even though he tries hard to make a living to support his family, he is seriously sick as his lungs are ruined. While Song Gang struggles with money-making, Baldy Li engages in a lawsuit with women who slept with Baldy Li and claim that he is the biological father of their kids. The farce at court ends up with the demonstration of Baldy Li\'s vasoligation that helps him win the lawsuit. After the farce, Writer Liu publishes a report to praise Baldy Li, resulting in making Baldy Li as a successful entrepreneur nation-widely. Liu Town is, therefore, known as Baldy Li\'s Town.
Song Gang compromises with Lin Hong to ask Baldy Li for employment. Baldy Li offers a management position to Song Gang, but he declines as he feels ill prepared. In response, Badly Li secretly gives money to Lin Hong and requests her to send Song Gang for medical treatment.
Baldy Li gets less and less famous from his nationwide image of a successful entrepreneur. He decides to hold an Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition to make his reputation great again. The so-called hymen economy springs up along with the competition. The Liu Town, which is also known as the Baldy Li\'s Town, is now named as Virgin Beauty Town. Thousands of virgins journey to Liu Town in hopes to win and possibly become Baldy Li\'s wife. Wandering Zhou, a charlatan, begins to make a profit during the competition by selling fake hymen\'s international and domestic to the virgins.
Song Gang leaves Liu Town with Wandering Zhou and they head to Shanghai, then travel to southern China. To make money, they try to sell different products, and Song Gang even has a breast implantation surgery to better sell the Boobs bust-enhancing cream. Their cooperative charlatan journey ends up with Wandering Zhou dropping out to take care of his new-born daughter with Missy Su in Liu Town. Preemptively becoming Wanderless Zhou.
While Song Gang is still on his journey, Baldy Li pays a Russian painter for a giant portrait and asks Lin Hong to unveil the portrait. Eventually, they begin an affair while Song Gang is away.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
Song Gang comes back to Liu Town and hears about the affair between Baldy Li and Lin Hong. After consideration over a few days, Song Gang realizes and believes that Lin Hong should have been with Baldy Li since the beginning. He writes two letters -- one for Lin Hong and another for Baldy Li -- and then kills himself on the railway.
Baldy Li and Lin Hong hear of the death of Song Gang when they are sleeping together after Lin Hong\'s hymen reconstruction surgery. They are too late to regret it. On the next day, they receive Song Gang\'s letters. The letter to Lin Hong demonstrates Song Gang\'s love to her, and the letter to Baldy Li can be concluded by the last line: \"even if heaven and earth were to be turned upside down, we would still be brothers\...even if we are separated by life and death, we will still be brothers.\"
Three years after Song Gang\'s death, people change in Liu Town. Lin Hong becomes a pimp and runs her prostitution business. Baldy Li decides he wants to go to outer space with the goal of placing Song Gang\'s ashes in orbit to allow him traveling between the moon and stars and gives the company to Writer Liu, now CEO Liu.
**Violence**
Yu Hua revisits themes of death, violence, and family that he has touched on in his earlier works. There are several other themes that are apparent throughout Brothers, a prominent theme would be suffering, which is prevalent in Baldy Li\'s early life, especially with all of his misfortunes that both of his parents and his stepfather died when he was very young. This also demonstrates how it is a novel of survival, as Baldy Li and his family initially came from nothing, forcing Baldy Li to fight for his success as an entrepreneur. It is also considered a coming of age novel as it outlines Baldy Li\'s life from his early childhood to his later life. There is also love woven throughout the story, not just romantic love but also brotherly and parental love. According to Hua Li, the author Yu Hua has a reoccurring trend of including premature death for his characters.
**Apathy**


# Brothers (Yu novel)
The Cultural Revolution seems to be a close friend of Yu Hua for his novelistic creation. In Part 1, the death, violence, and tragedy are written in relation to the well-known political movements of the 60s to 70s. However, Yu Hua, instead of depicting the cruelty of the movement itself, demonstrates more about relentless humanity during the movement. \"They are not human!\", \"How can people be this vicious?\" - says Mama Su as the character who witnesses Song Fanping\'s death - might represent what Yu Hua wants to point out here. That said, Yu Hua incarnates as Mama Su, to lash out the ruthlessness of people (human nature) during the Cultural Revolution.
**Farce**
Farce is massively depicted in the novel, especially in Part 2. Some novelistic events such as the lawsuit between Baldy Li and the women with whom he slept, the Virgin Beauty Competition with the hymen economy, and Song Gang\'s breast surgery with the goal of selling the boobs bust-enhancing cream are all farce. The events of farce can be seen as the demonstration of absurdity, and the absurdity is the basis of the real-world scenario. For instance, Yu Hua\'s depiction of the Virgin Beauty Competition was inspired by the real-life farce of \"beauty-pageant fever\" during China\'s early opening-up. This is to say, the novel of massive farce is the combination of both reality and absurdity to demonstrate the distorted and money-oriented human nature during the early period of China\'s opening up.
**Negative Portrayals of China & Politics**
Yu has not been shy in his dissent for China\'s policies and corruption, even admitting \"I stipulate in all my contracts that my manuscripts can\'t be touched editorially; not a word can be taken out. That\'s because there\'s a lot of politically sensitive material in there.\" Much of his distaste is masked in his novels through literary devices such as understatement, humour, inversion, self-mockery, ambivalent satire and subtle irony. For example, Baldy Li mimics a party secretary, in order to borrow the Chinese Communist Party\'s organizational system in running his business.
**Main Characters**.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
- **Baldy Li（李光头）:** Li Lan\'s biological son and Song Gang\'s younger stepbrother. His real name is \"Li Guang.\" As a child, he gets caught while peeping at women\'s bottoms at a restroom. Through various events in the story (part1 & part2), he eventually becomes the richest merchant in the Liu town and the nation\'s premier tycoon. (Note: While writing his protagonist, Yu Hua did not anticipate his writing to eventually lead him to create Baldy Li as a rich and successful man)
- **Song** **Gang（宋钢）:** Song Fanping\'s biological son, Baldy Li\'s elder stepbrother and Lin Hong\'s devoted husband. His loyal and stubborn characteristics are partly opposite to those of Baldy Li. Throughout the story, he endures injury, illness, and hardships while trying to earn money for Lin Hong. He follows Wondering Zhou out of Liu Town in the hope of making a fortune. Upon returning to Liu Town, he learns of Lin Hong\'s affair with Baldy Li and commits suicide at the train track.
- **Lin** **Hong（林红）:** The Liu Town no. 1 beauty. Her butt is peeped by young Baldy Li along with three other women\'s. She becomes Baldy Li\'s \"loved one\" in part 2, but she marries Song Gang and stays as a devoted wife until she gets sexual affairs with Baldy Li while Song Gang is out of town. After Song Gang\'s death, she opens a beauty salon and turns it into a prostitution business.
- **Li Lan（李兰）:** Baldy Li\'s biological mother. She is initially widowed when her first husband (Baldy Li\'s biological father) drowned in a cesspool, peeping women\'s bottoms. After a brief happy marriage with Song Fanping, she becomes widowed again when her second husband (Song Fanping) is beaten to death by the revolutionaries while she is in Shanghai to get her migraine treated. She later dies of uremia at her old age.
- **Song Fanping（宋凡平) :** Song Gang\'s biological father, and Baldy Li\'s stepfather. Initially a widower, he remarries Li Lan, with whom he shows his devoted love to until death. He is locked up by the revolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution being in a family line of landlords, and is eventually beaten to death as he escapes the detainment warehouse to pick up Li Lan from Shanghai. He is remembered as a \"real man\" by the people of Liu Town.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
**Other Characters**.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
- **Success Liu（刘成功）:** Has many nicknames including Writer Liu, CEO Liu, Deputy Liu and PR Liu, which reflects his transition into various roles throughout his life. As a teen, he bullies Baldy Li and Song Gang with Victory Zhao and Sun Wei. He is later beaten to hospitalization by grown-up Baldy Li. He contributes to Baldy Li\'s business and helps him gain nationwide fame by writing a tortured love story about him. Eventually becomes Baldy Li\'s spokesman.
- **Victory Zhao（赵胜利）:** Also known as Poet Zhao. An opportunistic character. He catches a young Baldy Li peeping on women\'s butts. In his jealousy towards Success Liu, from benefiting from Baldy Li\'s success, he becomes an assistant to Wandering Zhou. However, he eventually fails to gain Wandering Zhou\'s trust to continue working as his assistant.
- **Sun Wei（孙伟）:** Initially a friend of Success Liu and Victory Zhao, and a bully to Baldy Li. Later he becomes friends with Baldy Li when his former friends isolate him for being a landlord\'s son during the Cultural Revolution. Later murdered by the revolutionaries.
- **Tao Qing（陶青）:** A man of good will. He carries Song Fanping\'s corpse for the young Baldy Li and Song Gang. Remembering Li Lan\'s plea to take care of her son, he hires Baldy Li into the welfare factory he built. Later promoted to the higher government position becoming the County Governor.
- **Wandering** **Zhou（周游）:** Inspired by Baldy Li\'s success, he sets off to find business opportunities and returns with fake hymens for the virgin beauty contestants. He accompanies Song Gang to sell products and eventually returns to Liu Town without Song Gang upon learning that Missy Su gave birth to his daughter. Later changes his own nickname to \"Wanderless Zhou\"(周不游）.
- **Little** **Scissors** **Guan（小关剪刀）:** Also inspired by Baldy Li, he leaves Liu Town and never returns. Runs into Song Gang in Hainan Island and advises Song Gang to go back before he loses interest in returning.
- **Yanker** **Yu（余拔牙）:** First appears as the best dentist in the Liu town. During the cultural revolution period, classified patients\' teeth as good teeth and anti-revolutionary teeth. He becomes a remarkable stockholder of Baldy Li\'s company, interested in traveling around the world and do protesting.
- **Ice Pops** **Wang（王冰棍）:** Liu town\'s ice pops seller, not very rich at the beginning. He became another remarkable stockholder of Baldy Li\'s company, a conservative people criticized by Dentist Yu who doesn\'t know fashion trends.
- **Blacksmith** **Tong（童铁匠）:** Liu town\'s blacksmith who is relatively smarter than the other characters, also a man who want Lin Hong\'s butt story. He became a big supermarket owner after failing to cooperate with Baldy Li\'s company through stock purchasing. When he gets old, he becomes a long-term custom of Lin Hong\'s salon (prostitution place).
- **Mama** **Su（苏妈）:** A kind buddhism-belif woman who offers several helps to Baldy Li and his family, a traditional snack food restaurant owner.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
The novel Brothers was translated to French in 2008 and Italian in 2009, with the American and Spanish versions coming after, in such order, followed by the Hungarian, German and Dutch versions even later. This is an alternative to how Yu Hua\'s works often got translated as the English version would commonly be published after the European languages, e.g. French, Italian, German were released. The translation from Chinese to English for the English version of Yu Hua\'s Brothers was a dual effort from Eileen Cheng-yin Chow & Carlos Rojas, with Chow translating part I and Rojas part II, then revising their counterparts work. The story remains consistent with a singular narrative voice, which does not change back and forth between the two translators. The decision to have Eileen Cheng-yin Chow & Carlos Rojas translate the novel from Chinese to English, was due to Yu Hua being unable to translate the novel himself because of a family situation which arose in the period succeeding the Chinese editions publication.

## Adaptation
Unlike To Live that has been adapted for a film (*To Live*) and a Television series (*Fugui*), there is currently no adaptation of the same kinds for *Brothers*, possibly due to its novelistic absurdity and the political sensitivity of speaking about Cultural Revolution. Yet, *Brothers* was adopted for a stage play, starring by Xu Zheng who plays Baldy Li. Even though Xu Zheng is quite famous in China and the show was quite successful in Shanghai, the stage play is lesser known to the public. The novel was also adapted for a stage play in Japan in 2016 that Yu Hua attended the performance and praised the success of the adopted play. The cross-national adaptation indicates the increasing influence and significance of the novel on the international stage of literature.


# Brothers (Yu novel)
## Award
A French distinction -- \"Courrier International Prize of the Best Foreign Book\" (\"Prix Courrier International du Meilleur Livre Étranger\" in French) -- was awarded to Yu Hua in October 2008 for *Brothers*. The prize aims to reward a French-translated publication in the form of \"an essay, a story or a novel\...which would be a testimony of human condition in a given part of the world\". This award indicates that Brothers is of representativeness and the significance of showing China\'s human condition throughout history.
Due to the particularly politically sensitive subject matter and vulgar language, Yu Hua\'s novel received generally harsh reviews from Chinese literary critics, despite selling nearly one million copies in China. Yu has not been shy in his dissent for China\'s policies and corruption, even admitting \"I stipulate in all my contracts that my manuscripts can\'t be touched editorially; not a word can be taken out. That\'s because there\'s a lot of politically sensitive material in there.\" The violent nature of his novels as sparked the \"Yu Hua xianxiang\" or the Yu Hua Phenomenon, as postmodern narratives begin to display cruelty and descriptive gore. Inversely, the novel managed to receive critical acclaim from English speaking countries, after being released in January 2009.
Between April 2008 and January 2009, less than a year after publication, Yu Hua\'s Brothers has amassed more than fifty review from newspapers, radio and television programs, in addition to internet sites which ranged from brief to extensive. All of which proclaiming the novel as \"exceptional\".
**Positive Commentary in the Eyes of Chinese Reviewers**
- \"*Brothers* seems to be filled with vulgar language, yet it is indeed an artistic expression combined with human beings\' extreme depression and indulgence\" -- by Hong Zhigang
- \"\...*Brothers*\...is an exact and excellent example of realism, unfolding before readers the reality both straightforwardly and euphemistically\" -- by Chen Sihe (Professor of Literature at Fudan University)


# Brothers (Yu novel)
## Award
David Barboza of *The New York Times* noted in September 2006 that while many in China had panned the novel, others had \"praised the work as a compelling picture of an increasingly materialistic, self-indulgent and even unhinged society. \'I basically disagree with the critics,\' said Liu Kang, a professor of Chinese cultural studies at Duke University. \'This is a tremendous book. And Yu Hua is really one of the best Chinese contemporary writers.\'\" In addition to this, despite the harsh criticism of the novel in China, it was received exceptionally well in France.
**Positive Commentary in the Eyes of Anglophone Reviewers**
- In the eyes of Anglophone reviewers, *Brothers* is praised as \"a masterful novel\" with the \"combination of broad caricature and earnest realism, vulgarity and pointed satire\" via \"boundless imagination\", \"tremendous narrative technique\", \"and Yu Hua\'s flair for the macabre\". To make a long story short, the subject matter, the writing technique, and the plot imagination of the novel are all laudable. In Yubin Quan\'s analysis of the Anglophone reviews, found that most commentary was fixated on the commentary towards the Cultural Revolution, rather than the violence often depicted in Yu Hua\'s novels.
- New York Times author Jess row describes part one of the novel as a \"sentimental-family-cum-epic romance\" while the second novel delves into \"a broad historical satire.\"
**Negative Commentary in General**
- Most critics, whether in the eyes of Chinese or Anglophone reviewers, attack *Brothers* \"as vulgar, simplistic, and immoral\" with \"numerous contents\...that cannot hold water\". Others condemn the novel \"as lowbrow and crass\", which is as \"rough and absurd\...as a tear-jerking soap opera\" with a \"trashy, Hollywood-style portrait of the country\". The writing strategies such as \"artificial plotting\", \"hyperbolic, facetious or overemphatic tone\", and \"flat characterization\" are also criticized. Even though both Chinese and English reviewers share the similarity of criticism, Chinese critics are way more than English critics.


# A Day on Skates
***A Day on Skates: The Story of a Dutch Picnic*** is a children\'s novel by Hilda van Stockum. The novel, illustrated by the author, was first published in 1934 and was a Newbery Honor recipient in 1935. The foreword is by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
When winter finally brings snow and ice to their Frisian village, nine-year-old twins Evert and Afke and their classmates are delighted when their teacher announces that the class is going on an all-day ice skating picnic.
A public domain online edition of *A Day on Skates: The Story of a Dutch Picnic*, a 1935 Newbery Honor Book, is available at A Celebration of Women Writers.
- *Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates*


# En Iniya Iyanthira
***En Iniya Iyanthira*** () is a Tamil dystopian science fiction novel written by Indian writer Sujatha. In the late 1980s Sujatha wrote this novel as a series in the popular Tamil magazine *Dinamani kathir*. Following the success of *En Iniya Enthira*, Sujatha wrote a follow-up/sequel to this novel, *Meendum Jeano* (English: The Return of Jeano). The novel was made into a serial and released on Doordarshan in 1991. The main antagonist Jeeva was played by veteran actor Charu Haasan, Nila by Sivaranjini, Sibi by Shiva and Ravi by Anand.
The story of the *En iniya Enthira* revolves around a dictator who rules India and 3 rebels organising a coup against him including a girl named Nila and a robot dog named Jeeno. The film *Enthiran* starring Rajinikanth is slightly based on this novel.
The plot opens up in the year 2021 where India is ruled by a dictator called Jeeva. In his rule, the population is kept under control by killing elderly people when they cross the prescribed age limit. Everyone is allotted a unique name with two letters by Government. Every citizen of the country must strictly adhere to the rules of Jeeva and admire, adore him. The country is in total control of Jeeva\'s robots. People are identified only with their social security numbers and all the details are fed and controlled by Master Computer at Capital City.
On a New Year\'s Eve, Nila, a homemaker is very delighted for having the Government\'s permission letter to have a boy baby from Population Control Board. She intimates the news to her husband Sibi. While Government, allots a home space of Nila\'s residence for a man named Ravi and his pet Jeano. Jeano is a Robotic pet which can speak. As per the government\'s rule, home space should not be allotted to more than three people. So Nila\'s husband leaves to verify about Ravi\'s allotment but does not return home. Nila, tries to find him but in vain, she uses his social security number but finds that such a person does not exist.


# En Iniya Iyanthira
What happened to Sibi? What is the role of Ravi in Sibi\'s disappearance? How Nila finds her husband and a shocking truth about Jeeva and his dictatorship with the help of Jeano?
The rest of story moves with the answers to these questions.
`Name `
`Characters`
`Sibi `
`Nila's husband`
`Nila `
`Sibi's wife`
`Jiva `
`King`
`Jino `
`The Robot Dog`
`Ravi `
`Jino's owner`
Mano
` Ravi's friend`
Very high tech computer technology terms are used in the story. Jeano, a pet robot plays an important role throughout the story. As the story proceeds, it behaves and starts to think on its own like a human and instructs Nila, a human being to proceed further. The writer\'s perspective of a future India interests readers and paves a new way to science fiction.
- Indian science-fiction films


# Bill's New Frock
***Bill\'s New Frock*** is a fiction book for younger readers, written by Anne Fine and illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier. First published in 1989, and reissued in 2002, it concerns a young boy, Bill Simpson, who wakes up one morning to find he has transformed into a girl. Now forced to go to school in a pink dress, Bill discovers one of the worst days in his life is about to unfold. Baffled by the way things are just different for girls, Bill falls headlong into trouble. The book was adapted into a television special, which first aired on 6 June 1998.
The book has been used in United Kingdom schools to challenge gender stereotyping among primary school students. A 2002 study by the Social Science Research Unit, University of London, found evidence of children considering 'the different treatment that boys and girls receive', after reading the book.
In 1989, *Bills New Frock* was awarded a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize in the 6 to 8 years category.


# Threepenny Novel
***Threepenny Novel*** () is a 1934 novel by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht, first published in Amsterdam by in 1934 as **\', and now as**\'. It is similar in structure to his more famous *The Threepenny Opera* and features several of the same characters such as Macheath, together with a general anti-capitalist focus and a didactic technique that is often associated with the dramatist. It is a novel that has been the focus of much critical attention and that is often described as both a continuation and a variation of the themes and motifs of Brecht\'s other work that focuses on alienation and on the communication of a social message. It can be seen alternatively as a careful development of the detective novel genre and as scathing criticism of the Brecht\'s own social conditions and the economic practices of German businesses and banks in the middle of the 20th century.


# Threepenny Novel
In particular, it can be seen to have a peculiar relationship to history. According to Brecht\'s friend and intellectual confidant, Walter Benjamin, the novel is one that contains several different strands of history that do not directly match up. In the novel, Benjamin observes that \"Brecht draws epochs together and billets his gangster type in London that has the rhythm and appearance of the age of Dickens. Private life is subject to the earlier conditions; the class struggle, to those of today. These Londoners have no telephones but their police already have tanks.\" This aspect of the novel has drawn much critical attention and has helped to make sure that it is considered to be one of Brecht\'s most famous and important works of prose.
The novel is set in London at the turn of the 20th century and its plot focuses on the machinations and developments of finance capital, something that is often considered to be unusual for Brecht as his work is traditionally viewed as being based more concerned with conditions of industrial production. The plot is organised around the activities of three different financial consortiums which are taking place in London. Three central characters each take their place with their own strand of the capitalist economy in order to shows ways in which this economy can be seen to effect each individual person in complex and often unpredictable ways. A character named Peachum maintains a syndicate of street beggars whom he ruthlessly exploits, a character named Coax attempts to invest in a commercial shipping venture and Macheath, a gangster, the origin of the song \"Mack the Knife\", maintains a commercial venture. Macheath is presented in the novel as someone who has left behind his previous life as a cut-throat gangster and instead is now attempting to make serious progress in business by engaging in direct competition and attempting to absorb and defeat his competitors in a commercial sense. As well as depicting Macheath\'s rise to power, the novel also focuses on the ways in which Macheath is able to court Polly, the daughter of a rich individual known as Peachum. Brecht employs a series of complex plot twists and turns in order to demonstrate Macheath\'s legitimate rise to power and to show the way in which he is able to do this often with legal sanction. The novel ends with Macheath as someone who restructures his business, takes over his competitors and eventually becomes the head of a large and important bank.


# Threepenny Novel
The novel is intended as a critique of finance capital and of a society that encourages sociopathic behaviour in order to achieve success. It is known that Brecht directly based his understanding of Macheath\'s own business strategies on the contemporary corporate strategies, especially modelling it on those pioneered by major German stores and supermarkets such as Karstadt and . As such, the novel is set both between London at the end of the 19th century and Brecht\'s contemporary Germany. Several details in the novel can be seen to represent a satire of these conditions. Notably several characters die in horrific ways as a result of overwork necessitated by the system. At the same time, the world is shown to be one that encourages conflict and that actively translates the most gangsterish impulses into the sphere of bureaucracy into an acceptable mode for the modern world. Throughout the work, Brecht is keen to draw attention to the fact that the brutality and criminality of earlier modes of society have not been overcome in this process. At one key point in the novel this is shown as Macheath reminisces nostalgically about his previous life as a gangster and states that he wishes that he could return to these conditions in which conflict and violence could be carried out openly instead of being hidden behind bureaucracy.


# Threepenny Novel
The novel also shows that the legal system and the courts are weighted in favour of capitalist conditions and provides a criticism of the morality that this leads to. In particular, in several key ways the novel mimics the structure of a detective novel, however it does so in order to satirise the fact that within a capitalist economy it is almost impossible to find an individual who is not guilty, in some way or other, of contributing towards the continued exploitation of individuals. In one scene, a hypothetical trial is suggested in which all the dead would come forward and present their experience of exploitation in order to fully understand which historical individuals are guilty of exploitation. This dream clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the world as it exists and the near impossibility of attaining justice through conventional means in the world of capitalism.
The novel is one of the most obviously Marxist of Brecht\'s work, and indeed can be seen to quote directly from Marx\'s *Das Kapital* at several key points, even at one point directly reproducing a passage detailing the working to death of a 19th-century woman that appears in the chapter of *Das Kapital* detailing the working day. In particular, Brecht can be seen to employ a Marxist understanding of the way in which labour time is employed by capitalism in order to make sure that the most possible amount of profit is made in every possible instance. This involves directly ignoring the needs and desires of those who work within it and aggressively subsuming human individuals within their simple capacity to be laborers rather than people. This is made clear throughout the novel via the introduction of a specifically Marxist understanding of economics and of Capitalism as a totality in which people do not behave as singular individuals but rather as representatives of economic categories.
Although the *Threepenny Novel* is less famous than Brecht\'s plays, it is nonetheless considered by many to be a masterful work of satire and to hold an important place in his overall body of work. In particular its critique of capitalist temporality, its use of differing registers and its capacity to translate industrial production into a bureaucratic sphere have recently attracted attention from literary critics and also from critical theorists. Historically the novel can be seen as an important marker of Brecht\'s friendship with Walter Benjamin, whose review of the novel contains early formulations of his own theories of history and of a Marxist understanding of aesthetics.


# Daylight Robbery (novel)
***Daylight Robbery*** is a thriller novel written by Surender Mohan Pathak, a Hindi writer from Delhi, India.Originally published in 1980 by Shanu Paperbacks, it was translated into English by Sudarshan Purohit and published by Blaft Publications, Chennai, India in 2010.
It is the 8th novel in the *Vimal* series, and revolves around the robbery of a payroll van in Agra. The novel is unique in the sense that this is the first time Vimal engages in a crime for his own personal benefit (till now all he did was under threat of other hard-core criminals). Dawarkanath, an aged gambler from Agra, tells him of a great artist, a plastic surgeon called Dr. Earl Slater, who would operate *only* on wanted Indian criminals (for an amazingly high fee, of course). If Vimal (actual name Sardar Surender Singh Sohal), a wanted criminal in several Indian states and NCR, can get a new face, he can live safe from both the law and its breakers. That\'s what pulls him in Dwarkanath\'s amazingly inhuman scheme - it would involve crashing the cash-carrying armoured van \"like a piano accordion\" ! along with the driver and security guard. The officer in charge of Ratanakar Steel Mill, whose weak point is his shamelessly materialistic wife, is blackmailed to give-in a very complicated machination, exploiting his love for gambling. The team somehow pulls off their plan but things (as they always happen to poor Vimal) go wrong - Dwarkanath dies of a heart attack, the young and naive Kooka (another cooperator) loses both money and life, the money goes back to where it belongs and Vimal is left with empty pockets, his dream of a new face shattered and a long dark road full of underworld adventures stretching in front of him.


# Goggle-Eyes
***Goggle-Eyes**\'\', or***My War with Goggle-Eyes**\'\' in the US, is a children\'s novel by Anne Fine, published by Hamilton in 1989. It features a girl who thinks she hates her mother\'s boyfriend. In the frame story, set in a Scottish day school, that girl Kitty tells her friend Helen about hating her mother\'s boyfriend.
Fine won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year\'s best children\'s book by a British author. She also won the Guardian Children\'s Fiction Prize, a similar award that authors may not win twice. Six books have won both awards in 45 years through 2011.
*Goggle-Eyes* was adapted for television by the BBC in 1993.
Little, Brown published a US edition under its Joy Street Books imprint in 1989, entitled *My War with Goggle-Eyes*.
The story is told in the first person, by Kitty Killen. It is set in Scotland in the 1980s, when anti-nuclear protests were prominent in the news.
When Helen runs out of the classroom in distress, Mrs Lupey sends Kitty after her, despite the two not being particular friends. Kitty soon realises that Helen dislikes the man her mother is going to marry, so she tells her the story of how she first loathed Gerald, her mother\'s boyfriend, and how she gradually got used to him, despite his anti-CND views. \"Goggle-Eyes\"\' is the nickname Kitty gives Gerald, because of the way he stares (\"goggles\") at Kitty\'s mother. The story is told in a cloakroom cupboard during one morning, with occasional interruptions from Liz and Mrs Lupey.


# Goggle-Eyes
- Kitty Killen, a Scottish schoolgirl, the narrator
- Rosalind \"Rosie\" Killen, Kitty\'s mother, a nurse
- Judith \"Jude\" Killen, Kitty\'s younger sister
- Gerald \"Goggle-Eyes\" Faulkner, Rosalind\'s boyfriend
- Helen \"Helly\" Johnston, a classmate of Kitty\'s
- Liz, Helen\'s best friend
- Mrs Lupey, the form teacher
- Josie, Beth, Ben and others, CND protesters
- Inspector McGee, head of the police presence at the protest
- Mr Killen, Rosalind\'s ex-husband
- Mrs Harrison, Kitty\'s and Jude\'s babysitter
- Simon, one of Rosalind\'s boyfriends
- Floss, the Killens\' cat
*Goggle-Eyes* was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1989 and the Guardian Prize in 1990, the two most prestigious British awards for children\'s literature. It was also shortlisted for the Smarties Award in 1990 and the German Youth Literature Prize in 1993.
*Goggle-Eyes* was adapted for television by the BBC as a four-episode mini-series, which was broadcast in 1993. It starred Honeysuckle Weeks as Kitty. The screenwriter, Deborah Moggach, won the Writer\'s Guild Award for Best Adapted TV Serial. Anti-nuclear protests had diminished after the 1991 close of the Cold War so the story was revised to feature a more timely issue, Green politics.


# The Lancashire Witches
First edition title page
***The Lancashire Witches*** is the only one of William Harrison Ainsworth\'s forty novels that has remained continuously in print since its first publication. It was serialised in the *Sunday Times* newspaper in 1848; a book edition appeared the following year, published by Henry Colburn. The novel is based on the true story of the Pendle witches, who were executed in 1612 for causing harm by witchcraft. Modern critics such as David Punter consider the book to be Ainsworth\'s best work. E. F. Bleiler rated the novel as \"one of the major English novels about witchcraft\".
The subject of the Pendle witches was suggested to Ainsworth by antiquarian and long-time friend James Crossley, President of the Chetham Society. During 1846 and 1847 Ainsworth visited all of the major sites involved in the story, such as Pendle Hill and Malkin Tower, home of the Demdikes, one of the two families accused of witchcraft. He wrote the story in 1848, when it was serialised in the *Sunday Times* newspaper. On completion of the work, Ainsworth was paid £1,000 () and the copyright reverted to him.
As was common practice at the time, the novel was published in a three-volume set known as a triple decker. The first edition was produced by Henry Colburn in 1849, with the subtitle \"A Romance of Pendle Forest\". At £1 11s 6d, about the amount that a skilled worker could earn in a week, it was expensive. Routledge published an illustrated edition in 1854, reissued in 1878. The twelve full-page illustrations were by John Gilbert.
Ainsworth based his story largely on the official account of the Lancashire witch trials written by the clerk to the court, Thomas Potts, first published in 1613 under the title *The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster*. Potts himself makes an appearance in the book, as a \"scheming and self-serving lawyer\". The novel consists of four parts, each written as a third-person narrative.

### Introduction
The ten chapters of the Introduction, subtitled \"The Last Abbot of Whalley\", are set against the backdrop of the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace, an uprising by northern Catholics against the English Reformation instituted by King Henry VIII.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Introduction
Pendle Hill
It is late November 1536. Eight men, prominent among them John Paslew, Abbot of Whalley and the self-styled Earl of Poverty, are gathered together by a beacon at the top of Pendle Hill. An uneasy armistice has been declared in the Pilgrimage, and beacons have been built on high ground to act as a renewed summons to arms should they ever be lit; that is the signal the eight men are waiting for.
As dusk approaches the abbot and his party become aware of a tall dark man accompanied by a black hound standing close by, whom one of the party recognises as Nicholas Demdike, husband of Bess Demdike, \"an approved and notorious witch\". Demdike starts to sing, mocking the abbot and foretelling of his execution, which so enrages the abbot that he orders one of his archers to loose a shot at him. But Demdike merely laughs before disappearing down the hill, only pausing about half-way down to trace a circle in the grass and repeat some incantation.
In the growing darkness a signal fire is seen on a neighbouring hill, then another and another. Excitedly the abbot lights the beacon on Pendle Hill and prepares to ride to Whalley Abbey, to organise his forces in preparation for joining the main body of the rebel army the following day. But before he can leave, Demdike appears before him, to warn the abbot that if he proceeds with his plan his life will be forfeit. Demdike claims that he can save the abbot however, on one condition: that he baptise Demdike\'s infant daughter. Meanwhile a party of Royalist soldiers is ascending the hill in search of the abbot and his men, but Demdike conjures up a torrent of water from the spot where he had earlier traced the circle, and most of the soldiers are carried to their deaths. But still the abbot refuses to acquiesce to Demdike\'s request for his daughter to be baptised.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Introduction
#### Capture and escape
The abbot is subsequently captured by Royalist forces, tried at Lancaster Castle, and sentenced to death by hanging. He is condemned to be executed outside his family home of Wishall Hall, close to the abbey, where he is taken the day before the sentence is due to carried out. As the abbot and his guards are entering the abbey he is once again confronted by Nicholas Demdike, this time accompanied by his wife Bess and their unbaptised infant. Demdike repeats his request to the abbot that he baptise the child, promising that if he does so then Demdike can still save him even at this late juncture. But the abbot continues to refuse, saying to Bess \"I curse thee witch \... May the malediction of Heaven and all its hosts alight on the head of thy infant \... A thing accursed, and shunned by her fellows, shall thy daughter be -- evil reputed and evil doing\".
Borlace Alvetham hearing the abbot\'s confession
After a specially granted Midnight Mass, the abbot is overcome by remorse for his treatment thirty-one years earlier of a rival for the position of head of the abbey, Borlace Alvetham, and asks that a priest be sent to hear his confession. The abbot confesses that he had contrived to have Alvetham falsely accused of witchcraft and bricked into a tiny cell from which the only escape was death. The priest then throws back his hood to reveal that he is Borlace Alvetham, and that he had succeeded in escaping from his tomb with the aid of a demon. He further reveals that the demon promised him vengeance against his enemy, the abbot, and that when he returned to the area of Whalley twenty-nine years after his escape he had adopted the name of Nicholas Demdike.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Introduction
#### Capture and escape
Following his revelations Demdike rushes out of the room shouting \"To the gallows! -- to the gallows!\", leaving the abbot to his own thoughts. He is roused when Hal o\' Nabs, one of a group of men intent on rescuing the abbot, places a hand on his shoulder. But the abbot has given his word to his captors not to escape in return for being allowed to celebrate the Midnight Mass, and so refuses to follow the man down the ladder by which he had ascended. He is nevertheless tricked into escaping, and taken to the abbey mill. Inside he finds the miller\'s wife with an infant on her knee. She explains that the child is not hers, but was brought to her by her husband following the death of Bess Demdike that afternoon, so distraught was she at the abbot\'s curse. She shows the disfigured child to the abbot; one of its eyes is set lower than the other.

#### Execution
The abbot is quickly recaptured, thanks largely to Demdike. Shortly before the time for the death sentence to be carried out the following morning, the appointed executioner and his assistants disappear, because, it is suggested, they are reluctant to put churchmen to death. Demdike offers to take the executioner\'s place, and his offer is accepted. Moments before the appointed time, Demdike whispers to the abbot that he can spare him the indignity of a public execution by stabbing him to death if he would but retract the curse he had put on his daughter. The abbot\'s response is \"Never \... thy child shall be a witch, and the mother of witches\". Following his execution the abbot\'s body is entrusted to Demdike to be taken to the convent church. One of the abbot\'s erstwhile rescuers, Hal o\' Nabs, has been warned that Demdike is impervious to all weapons forged by man, and so to wreak his revenge for the death of the abbot he secretes himself behind a great stone statue of St Gregory in the gallery of the church, waiting for Demdike to appear below it. When he does, Hal pushes the statue from its pedestal and it falls on Demdike, crushing him and killing him instantly.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
Alizon Device being dressed for her appearance as the Queen of May, while her sister Jennet looks on
In the ten chapters of the first book, subtitled \"Alizon Device\", the novel has moved on more than sixty years.
The village of Whalley has been decorated for a May Day wake. In a cottage on the outskirts of the village, Alizon Device is being dressed as Maid Marion, Queen of May, ready to take her place of honour in the pageant which will soon be arriving at her door. She is a beautiful young woman, in stark contrast to her little sister Jennet, nine or ten years old, who is watching the preparations in a sullen silence. Jennet is small for her age, with sharp and cunning features. She also has several deformities, including a curvature of the spine and eyes that are positioned unevenly on her face. The two sisters are grandchildren of Nicholas and Bess Demdike\'s unbaptised child, now known as Mother Demdike. In the intervening years since the Abbot of Whalley\'s curse she has indeed become a witch, feared throughout the district.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
As the procession reaches the village green the usher announces the arrival of Sir Ralph Assheton and his party. He is the great-grandson of the Richard Assheton who had led the group of men up Pendle Hill to apprehend the Abbot of Whalley, and almost been killed by the torrent of water conjured up by Nicholas Demdike. Fourteen years after that November evening he had bought Whalley Abbey from the Crown. Among Assheton\'s party are two of his cousins, Nicholas Assheton of Downham and Richard Assheton of Middleton. Richard, accompanied by his younger sister Dorothy, is about twenty-two years old and considered to be very handsome. Also among Sir Ralph\'s guests are Alice Nutter and local magistrate Roger Nowell. Alice Nutter is dressed in mourning clothes for her husband Richard, who had been suddenly taken ill and died an unexplained death within three or four days. Richard Nutter was convinced that he had been bewitched, and some locals believed that Alice had picked up a wax image in her husband\'s room, stuck with pins, and that when she had thrown it on the fire Richard had died. Alice has been persuaded from her secluded life at Rough Lee because she wishes to secure the help of Sir Ralph in a dispute she is having with her neighbour Roger Nowell over the boundary between their two estates. Sir Ralph, having been appointed umpire in the dispute, has already ruled in favour of Nowell, but as Alice has refused to accept his decision a lawyer has been summoned from London to give a final decision, Thomas Potts, who is also at the fair. Potts is also acting for another member of the local gentry, Sir Thomas Metcalfe, \"a man of violent disposition\", who is claiming ownership of a neighbouring house and estate.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
Alizon is formally presented to Sir Ralph and Lady Assheton, and asked to choose her partner for the evening\'s dance to be held at the abbey. Blushing, she chooses Richard Assheton, who declares himself to be delighted by her choice, and asks if he may have the flower she is wearing as a token. Lady Assheton is quick to spot the mutual attraction between Alizon and Richard, which makes her a little uneasy. But the usher then leads Alizon to the maypole, where the festivities begin in earnest. Shortly thereafter Alizon becomes aware of a commotion some distance away, and on hearing that it is being caused by a swordfight between Richard and Sir Thomas Metcalfe, and fearful that Richard might be killed, she falls to the ground in a faint. But Richard is easily able to disarm his opponent, and, on the orders of Sir Ralph, Alizon is taken to the abbey to recover.
Meanwhile Alice Nutter and Nicholas have fallen into conversation about Mother Demdike. Nicholas is quite convinced that she is responsible for the death of Alice\'s husband, but Alice disagrees, and goes so far as to say that she does not believe in the existence of witches. Nicholas is adamant however, claiming that \"Pendle Forest swarms with witches \... the terror of the whole country\". Their conversation is overheard by Thomas Potts, and it gives him the idea to search out the witches that Nicholas refers to, and by so doing gain favour with King James, who is well known to have an interest in witchcraft.

#### Mother Chattox
Mother Chattox and her daughter Nan Redferne
The revellers make their way to the church. Richard Assheton goes in first, and unwittingly stands on the grave of John Paslew, the last Abbot of Whalley. His cousin Nicholas is much alarmed when he sees Richard in that position, reminding him of the common belief that any Assheton who stands on the grave will be dead within the year, but Richard is unconcerned.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
#### Mother Chattox
Nicholas and Richard leave the church, and see the arrival of Mother Chattox -- Mother Demdike\'s \"rival potentate in evil\" -- accompanied by her grand-daughter Nan Redferne. Under questioning from Nicholas, Mother Chattox admits that she hates all Asshetons. She places curses on both Nicholas and Richard, in the latter\'s case that \"the bloom shall shall fade from his cheek  \... the strength depart from his limbs. Sorrow shall be her portion who loves him\".
Unnerved by this encounter, Nicholas calls for the beagle to arrest Mother Chattox as a witch, but she has disappeared, and Nan is arrested instead, on the same charge. Potts appears on the scene, and insists that Nan be detained until she has been tested as a witch. She is placed on a set of scales and weighed against a bible, but not satisfied with the result Potts insists on an ordeal by swimming. While she is being bound for her ordeal a mole is discovered on her breast, a witch\'s mark according to Potts. Nance is thrown into the River Calder attached to two ropes, one on each bank. Initially she floats, but when the tension is eased out of the ropes she sinks to the bottom of the river like a stone, thus passing the test. But nobody attempts to save her from drowning until Richard Assheton dives in and rescues her.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
#### Mother Chattox
Some time later Alizon Device and Richard Assheton\'s sister Dorothy are strolling together through the grounds of the ruined abbey. Dorothy declares that she is so fond of Alizon that she would like her to come and stay with the Assheton family at their home in Middleton, but Alizon says that she must turn down the offer, as she feels a responsibility towards her mother and sister to encourage them back into the ways of the church. She goes on to say that she feels a particular responsibility towards her sister Jennet, and fervently hopes to be the agent of her salvation and save her soul. Dorothy then shares her fear that because Mother Demdike is widely believed to be a witch, the same accusation might be made about the members of her family, and that Alizon may suffer the same fate as Nan Redferne. She goes on to say that as Alizon is so different from the rest of her family that she and Richard both suspect that Alizon is not Elizabeth Device\'s daughter, or related to any of the Demdike clan.
Just then Mother Chattox appears in front of the two young women and proclaims herself the enemy of all of Mother Demdike\'s \"accursed brood\". Chattox says that because of Jem Device\'s treatment of her grand-daughter Nan Redferne during the trial by water she would have killed Alizon on the spot, had she not known that Alizon was indeed not Elizabeth Device\'s daughter and therefore not a Demdike. Although Chattox claims to know the secret of Alizon\'s birth, she says the time is not yet ripe for it to be revealed. Alice Nutter appears on the scene, demanding to know what Chattox has told the two girls. Chattox is evasive, but Alice is insistent that she reveals the identity of Alizon\'s real mother and casts a spell over her. Alice clearly has considerable power over Chattox, but the latter manages to shuffle off behind a tomb before she is forced to reveal her secret.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
#### Mother Chattox
After returning to the abbey Dorothy reveals to her brother, who has guessed that Alizon is not Elizabeth Device\'s daughter, her surmise that Alizon is in reality Alice Nutter\'s daughter. Nicholas Assheton then joins them, telling them that Potts has just told him that he suspects Alice of being a witch after overhearing a conversation she had had with Elizabeth Device.

#### Alice Nutter
Meanwhile Alice Nutter has taken Alizon to her room in the abbey, so that they can have a private conversation. Alice reveals that she and her husband Richard had a very unhappy marriage, and that he had become exceedingly jealous, suspecting that Alice was having an affair with a family friend. Consequently, when Alice became pregnant Richard was convinced that the child was not his. Elizabeth Device, who at the time was employed as Alice\'s lady\'s maid, had given birth to her own child two months before Alice\'s daughter, whom she named Millicent. One night shortly after Millicent\'s birth Richard Nutter and Jem Device had burst into Alice\'s bedroom, grabbed the baby and thrown it on the fire. But the child they had killed was Elizabeth\'s, and not Alice\'s, as Elizabeth had swapped the babies over. Millicent is sent to live with Elizabeth Device as her own child, and given the name Alizon.
Alice tells Alizon that she will be coming to stay with her at Rough Lee, and will not be returning to what until now had been her home with Elizabeth Device. By now it has become dark. Swiftly, Alice rises and makes a few passes of her hands over her daughter, at which Alizon falls back as though in a faint, yet still remains conscious. She becomes aware of the tall dark figure of a man emerging from the closet; the last thing she sees before losing consciousness is Alice prostrating herself before the sinister-looking figure.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
#### Alice Nutter
Just before the evening\'s dance is due to begin, Alice and Alizon join the main party in the abbey\'s gallery. Alice announces that she intends to adopt Alizon, having no children of her own. Keen to bring as many witches as possible to justice, Thomas Potts seeks out Jennet Device and promises her that she can make her fortune from the reward she will receive if she testifies against the other members of her family, including Alizon, and denounces them as witches. But before Jennet can give a proper reply Alice Nutter casts a spell over her, and she falls back faint.

#### Witches\' Sabbath
Dorothy Assheton\'s room, known as the Abbot\'s Chamber, is next to that of Alizon and her mother. Having heard tales of ghostly apparitions, Dorothy is afraid to spend the night alone in her room, and begs Alizon to sleep with her, but Alizon dare not leave her mother. After a short time Alizon hears a tapping at her door. It is a white-faced Dorothy, who has been terrified by the sight of a monk dressed in white emerging from behind the wall hangings and gliding into the oratory. Alice tells Dorothy that she must be mistaken, and to return to bed. But as the clock strikes twelve Dorothy sees another figure behind the hangings, this time a woman dressed in white, and once again seeks refuge in the room next door. Entering without knocking, she finds the room in darkness and Alizon asleep in a chair, but no sign of Alice until the same figure of the woman dressed in white she had seen in her own room appears from behind a tapestry. Alice\'s \"livid and contorted countenance\" horrifies Dorothy, who manages to hide in a closet.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The First
#### Witches\' Sabbath
Alice takes two bottles from a small box she is carrying. One contains a sparkling liquid, the other a greenish unguent. She drinks a few drops of the bright liquid before anointing her face and hands with the unguent, chanting \"Emen hetan\" repeatedly as she does so, before leaving the room. Curious about the liquid she had seen Alice take, Dorothy tries a few drops herself, and is instantly overcome by a \"bewildering excitement\". Having felt the effect of the potion herself, and wondering if it might have the power to rouse Alizon from her sleep, she rubs a few drops on Alizon\'s lips. Almost at once Alizon awakes, almost as excited as Dorothy. Together the pair make their way down to the garden and towards the ruined conventual church. When the girls get close to the church they hear the hubbub of a witches\' Sabbath, and hiding behind two columns to observe proceedings they learn that tonight a new witch is to be introduced into the group.
Alice Nutter appears to be in charge of proceedings, and is treated with great deference by the other witches present. The voice of a demon is heard as if coming from the bowels of the earth, demanding that if they want his help then the price to be paid is that a new witch is baptised. At that, Jennet Device is brought forward, but her mother Elizabeth rushes forward and strongly objects that Jennet is too young to be baptised a witch. Ignoring her mother, Jennet asks what she must do to become a witch. \"You must renounce all hopes of heaven \... and devote yourself to Satan\" replies Alice Nutter. On hearing those words Alizon rushes from her hiding place and goes to Jennet, asking the child to leave with her and be saved. But the demon insists on having a new convert, so Alice calls for Dorothy Assheton, who, still under the influence of the potion she had taken earlier, scarcely knows what is happening to her. Alice asks her if she is willing to become a witch, and Dorothy agrees that she is. But before the formal ceremony can be performed Alizon rushes to her, and forcing her to her knees begins to pray. With that, the witches flee.

### Book The Second
The second book, subtitled \"Pendle Forest\", consists of 17 chapters.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The Second
There is no sign of the events of the previous evening when the party assembles to visit the boundary between the estates belonging to Alice Nutter and Roger Newell to settle their dispute. They take a detour on their way to pick up Roger Nowell, which results in them having to pass through a narrow glen, where they are attacked by invisible foes. Pressing on, they reach the village of Sabden, which they find to be in a woeful state. The villagers complain that they have been bewitched by Mother Chattox and Mother Demdike because they had refused to supply the witches with poultry, eggs, milk and other things they had demanded. Taking a great interest in the case, Thomas Potts promises the villagers that they will soon be rid of \"these pestilent witches\".
Continuing on their way, the party is joined by a man riding a powerful black horse. Much to their surprise he looks and sounds exactly like the lawyer Thomas Potts. He introduces himself as one of the reeves of the forest of Blackburnshire, sent by Alice Nutter as a witness to the boundary examination. To add to their amazement he says that his name is also Thomas Potts. After passing over one of the ridges of Pendle Hill they encounter an agitated cowherd, who tells them that a pedlar named John Law has collapsed in a fit and will die without their assistance. From the look of the pedlar, Nicholas Assheton believes him to have suffered from a paralytic stroke, but the man himself is convinced that he has been bewitched by Mother Demdike, because he had refused to give her the scissors and pins she had asked him for. After taking Law to a hostelry in the nearby village of Goldshaw, the party rests for a while and takes some refreshment.
Wandering around the village alone, Richard enters the churchyard and sees the sexton in conversation with Mother Chattox. He overhears Chattox ordering the sexton to bury a clay image of Alizon Device with the words \"Bury it deep, and as it moulders away, may she it represents pine and wither\". Richard rushes forward and seizes the image, throwing it to the ground and smashing it, but Chattox succeeds in making good her escape before he can apprehend her.


# The Lancashire Witches
### Boundary inspection
Pressing on, the party arrive at the boundary of Roger Nowell\'s estate. He is armed with his own map while Sir Ralph Assheton has one provided by Alice Nutter. To Nowell\'s increasing frustration, several large boulders and a stream marking the extremities of his property are not where he knows them to be, and as there are no signs of them having been moved he voices his suspicion that Alice Nutter has used witchcraft to win her boundary dispute with him.
Encouraged by Thomas Potts, Nowell determines to arrest Alice Nutter and the other alleged witches in the area -- Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox along with their families. Richard and Nicholas Assheton baulk at Nowell\'s accusation of witchcraft against Alice Nutter, as it seems to them to be based on Nowell\'s bad grace in not accepting the evidence of his own eyes in his dispute with her. Consequently they leave the group and ride ahead to Alice Nutter\'s home in Rough Lee to warn her and to help defend her against Nowell and his remaining men. When Nowell arrives at Rough Lee he finds Alice Nutter in defiant mood and the gates to her property locked. She refuses to allow the men to enter, so some of them climb over the wall, only to find themselves attacked by her dogs. They beat a hasty retreat, before Alice Nutter appears at the gate and proposes that she and Roger Nowell have a private meeting to see if they can come to a mutual understanding. Nowell agrees, and Alice leads him to a small room off the main hall of the house.
Once they are alone, Alice demands that Nowell retract his accusation of witchcraft against her and tells Sir Ralph Assheton that he was mistaken about the boundary between their land, in return for which she offers to give the disputed land to Nowell without charge. Suspecting some kind of trickery, Nowell at first does not agree. Alice then conjures up a double of the magistrate, telling him that if he persists then she will have him incarcerated for the rest of his life, and send the double out in his place. Realising now that he has no choice, Nowell agrees to Alice\'s terms, to which she binds him by making him repeat the words \"May I become subject to the Fiend if I fail in my promise\".


# The Lancashire Witches
### Book The Third
Subtitled \"Hoghton Tower\".


# Heavenly Breakfast
***Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love*** is a 1979 memoir by author, professor, and critic Samuel R. Delany. It details the time he spent living in a commune in New York City during the winter of 1967-1968, although altering some details.
Heavenly Breakfast was also the name of the rock band that lived in the commune, which consisted of Steve Wiseman, Susan Schweers, Bert Lee (later of the Central Park Sheiks), and Delany.
The book is one of several autobiographical works by Delany.


# Ümera jõel
***Ümera jõel*** (English: *On the Ümera River*)is a novel by Estonian author Mait Metsanurk, set the fictional parish of Mägiste located in South Estonia in the early 13th century. It was first published in 1934.
- Battle of Ümera


# Aranyak
***Aranyak*** (; ) composed between 1937 and 1939 and published in 1976, is a Bengali-language novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, based on his long and arduous years in northern Bihar, mainly in the districts of Purnea and Bhagalpur. Aranyak literally means \"Of the Forest\". The novel explores the journey of the protagonist, Satyacharan, through the contrasts of the jungle and the city.
Bibhutibhushan went to places like Azamabad --- Fulkia --- Lobtulia --- Baihar in the state of Bihar during the period of 1924--1930. In these 6 years he worked for the Estate of Khilat Chandra Ghosh to reform lands by deforestation and provide the inhabitants some land for their settlement. During this period he became highly influenced by the natural beauty and the lives of dispossessed subsistence peasants, penurious Brahmins, migrant landless laborers and adivasis and this provides the impetus to compose this classic novel. On 12 February 1928 he wrote in his personal diary (Smritir Lekha) : *I shall write something about the lives around this jungle. A portrait of a tough courageous, speedy, neglected life. This jungle it\'s loneliness getting lost while riding a horse --- darkness --- to live in this jungle building temporary thatch settlements\... The poverty, simplicity of these people, this Virile, Active life, the picture of this dense forest in the pitch darkness of this evening --- all of this.* (Bibhutibhushan Rachanasamagra 1, page 417). In his unpublished personal diary he had further written in 1934 - *A novel on forests. It will have the stories of loneliness, stories of trees and plants\... In this novel I shall bring out the dichotomy between the rich, wealthy landlords and the poor, sad peasants. They are homeless\... They don\'t get to eat.*


# Aranyak
*Aranyak* used to be published serially in a monthly magazine titled *Prabasi*. It was first published as a book by Katyayani Book Stall. Presently the edition available is the one published by Mitra & Ghosh Publishers Pvt. Ltd. This book was dedicated to Bibhutibhushan\'s first wife Gauri Devi.
*Aranyak* is a simple and uncomplicated story. The protagonist Satyacharan goes to an estate, full of forest land, in Bhagalpur district in Bihar after getting a job of the estate manager. Initially his urban lifestyle revolts against the lonely jungle life but gradually nature hypnotized Satyacharan. Eventually he can not even remain away from the forest and its serene surroundings for long periods. Satyacharan and his partner Jugalprasad, a perfect match to the nature-loving soul of Satyacharan decorated the forest by planting many rare species of herbs and saplings. But Satyacharan is an estate manager and his job was to reclaim the forest land and distribute to the people for more revenue earnings. He has no other way but to destroy this wonderful creation of the forest-Goddess against his own will and distribute it amongst the local people. Age old gigantic trees as well as plants and herbs of rare species are being destroyed to make way for human encroachment. The novel ends with a deep feeling of guilt and sadness in Satyacharan.


# Aranyak
### Satyacharan
The novel \"Aranyak\" is written in first person. The protagonist of the novel is Satyacharan --- a young man who has had to travel out of Kolkata in search of a job. He is the sole bridge that connects the forest with the so-called civilized outer world. The unsaid comparison between the two worlds that is hidden almost everywhere in the novel, would have never been possible without the presence of this character. Satyacharan is one of the most important characters in this novel. However, it will be a grave mistake to think of him as the central character of this novel. He is an outsider- who has no connection with the forest or the forest people. He is a mere audience of the daily mystery drama that is played in the stage of the jungle every day. He can only witness the acting in this beautiful drama from outside, he does not have the capability to go up onto the stage and take part in that drama.
Basically there is no central character in the novel \"Aranyak\". The forest itself is the central character --- which introduces itself through the beauty of the forest and the lives of the forest people at every point. Satyacharan stands outside of all of this. Through his sharp intellect and intense feelings he can understand and enjoy whatever he watches, but he can not engross himself into any of it. Because he does not belong to the forest, he is an outsider.

### Raju Pnaare
There are many different characters in the forest but none like Raju Pnaare. Extremely poor, very harmless, shy, religious man --- who spends the entire day in worship, reading holy books etc. He got two bighas of land courtesy of Satyacharan but could not deforest it in two years time --- he had to lead his life eating grains of Chinese grass only. Satyacharan gave him some more land but his habit did not change. Actually Raju was more of a poetic and philosophical nature than that of a financial nature.


# Aranyak
### Aditya Narayan Dash
When a short boy named Dhaturia came to perform dance here his age was not more than twelve or thirteen. In the Southern parts there was a famine due to drought, hence the people of those lands went out to perform dances. Dhaturia came along with such a party --- he was only paid with meals, that too only as meager as Chinese grass grains with salt, and at most some jungle vegetables.

### Dhaotal Sahu
Dhaotal Sahu lives in the village of Naogachia; his occupation is to lend money on interest. We mostly think of interest earning money lenders as very bad people. But Dhaotal Sahu is not like them, he is in fact quite the opposite --- greed-less kind soul.
Everyone around the forest knows him; inhabitants, businessmen, landlord, almost everyone transacts with him --- there is no estimation of his wealth. But he is a very simple and ego less person, who does not have any issue with wearing dusty clothes and having a meal of simple sattu beside a stub or by the street.

### Matuknath Pnaare
Matuknath Pnaare is a descendant of an educated Brahmin family, who used to teach in a tol or a small primary school in his village. Once the school closed down, he wandered in search of a job and landed in the office of Satyacharan one day. He thinks --- if the manager favors him then there would be an opportunity of earning. There could be no arrangements made for him in the office as he knew nothing about the work, but he stayed there for a few days. Satyacharan also did not object in that, because may be he liked this simple, almost callous ever happy man somewhat.

### Jugalprasad
Jugalprasad is one of the mystic characters of the novel. He is an ardent lover of Nature. He has a goal of beautifying the forest until his death. He had collected ornamental plants likes-Rangon, Baganbilash from Kalkata city to plant. Also collect water-lilies to beautify the forest.


# Aranyak
### Kunta
Kunta is a holly sati as drawn by the author. She was daughter of a Baiji. But later she was married by a Rajput. Soon after her marriage she lost her husband. She was then captured by Rasbihari Singh, who wanted to marry her. Kunta escaped from Rasbihari\'s hand and started life in great hardship. Later she was graced by Satya and got some land in free. At the end of the story, she was found crying as Satya left for ever.

### Venkateshwar Prasad
Venkateswar was a local poet and lived with his wife at the vicinity of the forest. Once he invited Satya to listen his poems. Though Satya did not enjoy the poems, still he pressed Venkateswar for his hearty effort.

### Manchi
Manchi is a young Gangota (aq tribe caste) girl, unfortunately married to an old Sardar, Naxedi. She has got a tremendous life in her which attracted Satya. She gossiped with Satya several times and started thinking that Bengali people (Satya) are very good writers. She asked Satya to write about Their fallacy of poverty and untouchability. She had great interest in cheap fancy commodities. One day she was found to be missing. Satya suspected that anyone tempted her by fancy things and took her to tea estate to employ her as a female-labour. Later Naxedi and his first wife along with their daughters (Suratia) got some land from Satya and escaped their vagabond life.


# Aranyak
### Raja Dobru Panna and Princess Bhanumati
Raja Doboru Panna is truly a raja (king) of few Santals. He is an old man who lost all of his royal powers after independence. Still his personality takes after a king. Satya pays him a visit and Doboru invites him cardially. After few months of this visit, the news of Doboru\'s death comes to Satya. Later on, Satya goes to Santal Pargana (residence of Doboru). Jagaru Panna is the son of Doboru who has no such influence on the plot.
But Bhanumati, grand daughter of Doboru had a friendly relationship with Satya. At the fag end of the novel, when Satya is about to leave the forest for ever, he goes to visit Bhanumati for the last time. We find much to our exclaim that on his return Satya thinks \'\'If I could marry Bhanumati and build a happy nest for us.. Bhanu would speak out of some imaginative giant, and I would be her listener

### Rashbehari Singh
Rasbehari is one of the most cruel zamindars who ruled poor tribes by his weapon and manpower. He has no such clash with Satya though he joins to Chote Singh and Nandlal Ojha Golaoala to drive out the honest manager Satya by influencing higher authority. Even he invites Satya in a ceremony of Holy to show off his power. He once captured Kunta in order to marry her. He can be considered as the perfect villain of the novel.

### Nandalal Ojha
Nandalal Ojha is one of the few bad men in the novel. He knows how to cajole people to his own advantage. Those who does not make him happy becomes his enemy. He is really a dangerous person.


# Aranyak
### Nandalal Ojha
*Aranyak* used to be published serially in a monthly magazine titled *Prabasi*. It was first published as a book by Katyayani Book Stall. Presently the edition available is the one published by Mitra & Ghosh Publishers Pvt. Ltd. It was first published in May, 1976 and the present paperback classic edition is the 24th print which is dated January, 2010. This edition was edited by Shri Taradas Bandyopadhyay, son of the author.
*Aranyak* has been translated into Sinhala language by Chintha Lakshmi Sinhaarachchi (චින්තා ලක්‍ෂ්මී සිංහආරච්චි) as *Aranakata Pem Banda (අරණකට පෙම් බැඳ)*. The novel has been translated into English by Rimli Bhattacharya as *Aranyak: Of the Forest* (2002). The book has been translated into English in January 2017 by Lucknow-based Suchismita Banerjee Rai. The English version is published by Kolkata-based Mitra and Ghosh Publishers.


# Adam Buenosayres
***Adam Buenosayres*** () is a 1948 novel by the Argentine writer Leopoldo Marechal. The story takes place in Buenos Aires in the 1920s, and follows a vanguard writer who goes through a metaphysical struggle during three days. The book is a humorous account of the Martinfierristas movement, which was prominent in Argentine literature in the 1920s.
Julio Cortázar hailed the novel as a major literary event, but otherwise it received limited attention upon the immediate publication. Pedro Orgambide has suggested that this might have been due to Marechal\'s support for Juan Perón, which was controversial at the time. It has since gained status as one of Argentina\'s most prominent novels. The English translation by Norman Cheadle and Sheila Ethier was longlisted for the 2015 Best Translated Book Award.


# Debatable Space
***Debatable Space*** is a 2008 science fiction novel by novelist and screenwriter Philip Palmer.
The book alternates between telling the story of the main character, Lena Smith, in the form of a diary and a first-person narrative of events which take place roughly 1000 years from the present day. Each section of the POV narrative bears the name of the character it follows.
The book is billed as a space opera.
- **Lena Smith** - The main character of the novel, former president of humanity and mother of \'the Cheo\'.
- **Flanagan** - Who is, for want of a better word, a pirate.
- **Peter Smith** aka **The Cheo** (\"Chief Executive Officer\") - The despotic ruler of the known universe
It received mixed reviews, with the *Guardian* describing it as \"a debut of rare accomplishment\", and *Strange Horizons* describing it as having \"a pretty good twisty plot at the core of the novel---but sadly \... buried underneath layers of cinematic flash-bang frippery and clunky long-winded exposition.\" *SF Signal* described it as \"not always successful, but \... definitely a promising start.\"


# Richard Yates (novel)
***Richard Yates*** is an autobiographical novel by Tao Lin, published in 2010.
Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning (unrelated to their child star namesakes, though they are the same respective ages as the actors were at the time the book was published) are friends who initially met over the internet and converse with each other regularly through Gmail chat. Haley is a 22-year-old author in Manhattan, and Dakota is a 16-year-old high school student in a nearby suburb in New Jersey.
The novel\'s plot is based on Lin\'s relationship with the poet E. R. Kennedy, whom he dated when he was 22 and Kennedy was 16. In October 2014, Kennedy accused Lin of committing statutory rape over the course of their relationship. Kennedy also accused Lin of instances of emotional abuse, and claimed that Lin based passages in *Richard Yates* on personal email correspondence between the two*.*