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For centuries, the Chieftain of Wakanda (the Black Panther) has gained his powers through the juices of the Heart-Shaped Herb. Much like Vibranium, the Heart-Shaped Herb is essential to the survival and prosperity of Wakanda. But something is wrong. The plants are dying. No matter what the people of Wakanda do, they can't save them. And their supply is running short. It's up to Shuri to travel from Wakanda in order to discover what is killing the...
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English
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A compelling portrait of the perfect English butler, who, at the end of his career in postwar England, reviews his life and secretly questions the "greatness" of the nobleman he served. This Booker Prize-winning novel is now a Merchant-Ivory film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
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English
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A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's...
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"It's 1992 in Bleak Creek, North Carolina, a sleepy little place with all the trappings of an ordinary Southern town: two Baptist churches, friendly smiles coupled with silent judgments, and an unquenchable appetite for pork products. Beneath the town's cheerful facade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to The Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a record of putting unruly teens back on the straight and narrow--a...
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English
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In this program, one of the most astute observers of contemporary African American life discusses the value and difficulty of maintaining an African American identity in a world dominated by whites, urging viewers "to celebrate voraciously that which is yours. The breadth of her vision-from rural South to urban ghetto to the black middle class-is revealed as she reads from The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, and Mama Day, in the last of these...
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Español
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The works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez have drawn international praise for their highly symbolic and marvelously ethereal representations of Latin America's social, political, and cultural psyche. In this program, the author discusses his life and work from a highly personal plane, delving deeply into the reasons why he writes, his intuitive methods, and the influences over time, especially the women in his family, which color his work. From a sunlit...
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English
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Stranded on an island by a plane crash that leaves all the adults dead, a group of schoolboys establish a primitive society in order to survive. However, their tribal community, begun on moral terms, decays into savagery and ends in a brutal murder. This allegorical novel, now a classic of 20th-century literature, probes the dark side of human nature that lurks beneath the thin veneer of civilization. In this program-enriched by footage from the 1963...
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English
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Things Fall Apart has been translated into 50 languages, has sold over 8 million copies, and is considered one of the 20th century's literary masterpieces. This program analyzes the impact Chinua Achebe and his writings have had on world literature, as well as his influence as an editor and a spokesman for a generation of African writers. Dr. Achebe, noted professors Abiola Irele and Gerald Graff, and Charles Larson, editor of the anthology Under...
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English
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Updike, Roth, Barth, Irving: their names reverberate in the halls of modern American literature. In this NewsHour program, these four literary icons - along with the highly regarded writers Frank McCourt and Susan Sontag - offer insights into their books and the heady, and sometimes frustrating, process of writing them. Episodes include...* Irish Ashes - A Conversation with Frank McCourt: Elizabeth Farnsworth speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer...
11) Gerald Vizenor
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English
Description
His life, like his work, was a long time taking root in a place and a culture. Drawing on his Ojibwa heritage, the bitter effects of his father's murder when he was himself still a baby, his intermittent formal education, and his need to reconcile the tribal past with the political present, Vizenor has, poem by poem, story by story, and novel by novel, constructed an impressive oeuvre that marks him as among the most prolific and most intellectually...
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English
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It has been written that "science fiction is the true literature of the 20th century, showing us the present through an image of the future. This documentary looks at classic films and novels, pulp fiction, B movies, and the special-effects wizardry of science fiction adventure epics. Interviews with key writers and filmmakers of the genre, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Paul Verhoeven, map out the history of science fiction. By juxtaposing newsreels...
13) Sergio Pitol
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Español
Description
Childhood is your native land, and language is your native land-the two elements for a writer, of course, says Mexican author Sergio Pitol. In this program, the Cervantes Prize-winning writer reflects on his love of reading, which began at a very young age, and his lifelong admiration for the works of Jules Verne and Thomas Mann. In addition, the author of El Viaje, El Arte de la Fuga, El Desfile del Amor, and La Vida Conyugal shares his thoughts...
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English
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In this program, novelist V. S. Naipaul, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature, explores the relationship between a writer and his work, offering insights into his life, his career, and his subtly incisive novel/memoir The Enigma of Arrival. In particular, he contrasts the inspiration of living in the English countryside with the Caribbean, Indian, and African influences that dominate his earlier writings. Excerpts from Miguel Street, A House...
15) Miguel Delibes
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Español
Description
In this 1973 interview for Spanish television, author and journalist, Miguel Delibes,talks about his early life and career. He discusses the origin of his french surname, the social realism and existentialist themes inhis novels, and his obsession with death. He was awarded the Premio Nadal for his first novel,"The Cypress Casts a Long Shadow," as well as criticism for "The Road." In 1973, Delibes was elected to the Royal Spanish Academy, and is recognized...
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English
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Bharati Mukherjee writes vivid, sensual, and troubling stories about America's newest immigrants, Asians like herself. Mukherjee's early novels spoke from India, the old world she left behind to marry an American. Upon arriving in America she set out to capture the New World experiences of Asian immigrants. In this program with Bill Moyers, Mukherjee discusses America's newest immigrants and the building resentment and tensions between our country's...
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English
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Anthony Burgess examines Orwell's achievement, starting with the accuracy of his predictions for the future. Burgess shows how the novel 1984 sprang from the main concerns of Orwell's earlier work and suggests that Orwell identified areas in which human freedom has always been, and continues to be, threatened.
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English
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A novel of ideas at once serious and comic, The Magic Mountain offers a bird's-eye view of the political, philosophical, and social landscapes of pre-World War I Europe. This program uses provocative dramatizations of key scenes from Thomas Mann's grotesque bildungsroman and employs the character of Mann himself, in a re-creation of a 1939 lecture, as a guide to the story's heights and depths. In addition, Mann's biographer, Nigel Hamilton, inquires...
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Español
Description
In the first decades of the 20th century, Brazilian avant-garde literature came into its own. This program examines the awakening of Modernismo and subsequent movements in Brazilian letters, from Sao Paulo's Week of Modern Art in 1922 to the politically focused milieu of the 1970s. Outlining historical events that helped shape the country's multifaceted culture, the program explores the writings of Graciliano Ramos, Jose Lins do Rego, Augusto Meyer,...
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English
Description
An author who defies classification, Doris Lessing has plowed both wide and deep, combining acute observation of everyday life with a concern for broad issues such as how society should be organized, the value of politics, the role of women, and the nature of individuality. In this vintage program, biographer and critic Claire Tomalin and science fiction author Brian Aldiss talk with Lessing about her life and her work, with a special focus on her...