Haiku Poem

Struggle

i struggle to write

words of love and affection

my heart feels so low

....

Tourist Spot in Aklan that influence by Foreign Culture

Same Old Island Vibe 

Everyone says that Boracay is overdeveloped, that there are too many tourist, concrete structures, big hotels, businesses on White Beach, boats and vendors. Such things are inevitable on a booming resort island like ours, and fortunately there are still a few places that continue to respect Mother Nature’s wonders and have preserved the beauty of the old Boracay.

                                                                              

The Spider House in Diniwid is one of the chosen few. Being the local’s favorite hideaway, this native resort and bar is lithely webbed into the untouched nature at the edge of Diniwid Beach. It was built in 1990 as a summer house for its owners and eventually became operational to the public.      

Its unique edifice is built in perfect harmony with nature; bamboo walls enclosing the area, nipa strewn around the walls and ceilings, stark wood furnishing, local gecko paintings adorning the walls, and cozy bamboo balconies that open up to a stunning view of the pristine sea and the neighboring Panay Island.

 It highlights the relaxation deck, which extends above the sea, allowing guests a fresh jump-off into the water. It is also perfect for viewing the dramatic sun descending into the realm of the crystalline sea and spreading crimson rays above Mainland Panay. In fact, it is famous among locals and artists indulging in complete relaxation over sunset cocktails.

Another sunset viewpoint and nature camouflaging habitation is BalingHai Beach Resort in Yapak. Located on the northern part of the island, this cliff side resort is dotted with towering tropical trees, a labyrinth of pebbled paths and driftwood steps leading to privately ensconced cottages. Owner Otik Macavinta built this resort in 1983 in order to share Boracay’s tropical waters and the wild landscapes with his special guests. He takes pride in the distinctly characterized cottages, each one attuned to the elements of BalingHai- the Bat, Hill, Tree, Hut, Rock, and Garden with open-viewing  rooms, rustic furniture, and majestic verandas.

 At the foot of the resort is the quaint beach cove of BailingHai where the bar is located. It is a favorite    stop-over of paraw excursionists for relaxing over a light meal after snorkeling in the surrounding corals or simply to get away from the tourist-packed White Beach.

Further away from BalingHai is the sprawling white sandy beach of Puka. Reminiscent of the old Boracay, Puka Beach has still maintained its tranquil and pristine feel with locals collecting puka shells from its course sandy shore and selling them as jewelry, as well as the presence of a singular restaurant at the entrance, called Tesebels, which has been open for the last few years. Boating tours often land here bringing guests for picnics, freshly-made coconut juice, photo ops, puka jewelry shopping, and for a brief immersion to a somewhat deserted island where the water is rough and the assortment of tropical trees are still inhabited by a few monkey’s, snakes and flying foxes.

Though White Beach is considered commercial already, a few establishments still hold the impression of the island’s native vibe. Real Coffee and Tea, for instance, is a nipa and bamboo café tucked inside an alley near Boat Station 1. It is a family run business, owned by Lee Rosaia and her daughter Nadine. In 1996 they started the first Real Coffee through a small kiosk between Bom Bom and Pat’s Creek Bar where they were heralded as the first coffee shop on the island that was selling gourmet coffee drinks. Through the years, the native style coffee shop has evolved into a healthy fast food diner, serving fresh yogurt, herbed omelets, whole wheat sandwiches, hearty breakfast meals, and freshly-baked cookies and muffins, like the top-selling Calamansi Muffins. Now with a bigger and more homey location, people visit them for breakfast, meetings, family gathering and simply to have coffee. For them it is the ultimate breakfast place that still emits an island paradise ambience.

 Along the same alley as Real Coffee is another native-style dining place. Shibaya Japanese Restaurant offers delectable and inexpensive Japanese cuisine inside a cozy nipa hut where guests can eat ample servings of Maki or Katsudon and be reminded that they are still on Boracay. Nature lover and proprietor.  Leo Sy opened this restaurant in May 2010 in order to share his passion for Japanese cuisine with his fellow islanders. Having worked in Japan for 3 years, as well as being a translator and tour guide for Japanese tourists, Mr. Sy guarantees good food quality and efficient service. He obtains his ingredients locally and serves only fresh Lapu-Lapu and Tuna sashimi to avoid health risks to his customers. As far as promos are concerned, he offers a free appetizer for every two liters of Sake ordered.

In terms of finding tranquility and a laid back atmosphere on White Beach Angol, at the southern end, is the place to be. This distant haven starts at the palm tree-lined path in front of Angol Point Beach Resort until the isolated at Asya Premier Suites. This relatively long stretch of island life is favored by Europeans who aims to spend a week away from excessive commercialism and noise. They favor resort like Angol Point Beach Resort, an eco-compound crawling with healthy coconut trees that outline eight native cottages and its well-maintained garden. It is the only place on White Beach with untouched veegitation where guest can lay down their sarongs and read a book in peace.

Rubaiyat

Colours

Have you seen the bush by moonlight

Seen the Sun kiss the Earth goodnight

Covering her with a sleepy goldness

Just preparing for a time of delight.

Have you heard the birds raucous din

At the end of day as parrots settle in?

Red breasted galahs argue with the rest

A host of colours flitting then settling

See the red rock in the middle at sunrise

Then the contrast against light blue skies

The richest greens of the northern jungle

And burnt out trees that never die

Evermore you'll love the bushland

White sand beaches and red heartland

See the rains that have long been prayed for

And see the Garden State alive and grand.

Most Popular Writers in the world and the Writings

William Shakespeare

Was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaboration, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognized as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshiped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

List of Work
Comedies

• All's Well That Ends Well ‡
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love's Labour's Lost
• Measure for Measure ‡
• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre *†
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest *
• Twelfth Night
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Two Noble Kinsmen *†
• The winter’s Tale *

Histories

• King John
• Richard II
• Henry IV, Part 1
• Henry IV, Part 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI, Part 1 †
• Henry VI, Part 2
• Henry VI, Part 3
• Richard III
• Henry VIII †

Tragedies

• Romeo and Juliet
• Coriolanus
• Titus Andronicus †
• Timon of Athens †
• Julius Caesar
• Macbeth †
• Hamlet
• Troilus and Cressida ‡
• King Lear
• Othello
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Cymbeline *

Poems

• Shakespeare's sonnets
• Venus and Adonis
• The Rape of Lucrece
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The Phoenix and the Turtle
• A Lover's Complaint

Lost plays

• Love's Labour's Won
• The History of Cardenio †

Apocrypha

• Main article: Shakespeare Apocrypha
• Arden of Faversham
• The Birth of Merlin
• Edward III

Locrine

• The London Prodigal
• The Puritan
• The Second Maiden's Tragedy
• Sir John Oldcastle
• Thomas Lord Cromwell
• A Yorkshire Tragedy
• Sir Thomas More

Charles John Huffam Dickens 

was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and the creator of some of the world's most memorable fictional characters. During his lifetime Dickens' works enjoyed unprecedented popularity and fame, but it was in the twentieth century that his literary genius was fully recognized by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to enjoy an enduring popularity among the general reading public.

Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens left school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into debtors' prison. Though he had little formal education, his early impoverishment drove him to succeed. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels and hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens rocketed to fame with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, celebrated for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens went on to improve the character with positive lineaments. Fagin in Oliver Twist apparently mirrors the famous fence, Ikey Solomon; His caricature of Leigh Hunt in the figure of Mr Skimpole in Bleak House was likewise toned down on advice from some of his friends, as they read episodes: In the same novel, both Lawrence Boythorne and Mooney the beadle are drawn from real life – Boythorne from Walter Savage Landor) and Mooney from a certain 'Looney', a beadle at Salisbury Square. Though his plots were carefully constructed, Dickens would often weave in elements harvested from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

Dickens was regarded as the 'literary colossus' of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is one of the most influential works ever written, and it remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. His creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism.

List of Work by Charles Dickens


Novels

• The Pickwick Papers - 1836
• Oliver Twist - 1837
• Nicholas Nickleby - 1838
• The Old Curiosity Shop - 1840
• Barnaby Rudge - 1841
• Martin Chuzzlewit - 1843
• Dombey and Son - 1846
• David Copperfield - 1849
• Bleak House - 1852
• Hard Times - 1854
• Little Dorrit - 1855
• A Tale of Two Cities - 1859
• Great Expectations - 1860
• Our Mutual Friend - 1864
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood – 1870

Partial Listing of Short Stories and Other Work by Charles Dickens in Alphabetical Order

• American Notes
• The Battle of Life 
• The Chimes: A Goblin Story
• A Christmas Carol
• A Christmas Tree 
• A Dinner at Poplar Walk
• Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions 
• A Flight
• Frozen Deep
• George Silverman's Explanation
• Going into Society 
• The Haunted Man
• Holiday Romance
• The Holly-Tree 
• Hunted Down
• The Long Voyage
• Master Humphrey's Clock 
• A Message from the Sea
• Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
• Public Life of Mr. Trumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog 
• Sketches by Boz
• The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton 
• Sunday under Three Heads
• Tom Tiddler's Ground
• Travelling Abroad - City of London Churches
• The Uncommercial Traveller
• Wreck of the Golden Mary

J.K. Rowling

Joanne Kathleen Rowling (born July 31, 1965), commonly known as J.K. Rowling, is a British fiction writer. Rowling is most famous for being the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. Rowling's books have gained international attention and have won multiple awards. In February 2004, Forbes magazine estimated her fortune as 576 million, making her the first person to become a billionaire (in terms of U.S. dollars) by writing books. Rowling is also the wealthiest woman in the United Kingdom, well ahead of even Queen Elizabeth II.

She was born in Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire.

As her publisher, Bloomsbury, wanted to use initials on the cover of the Harry Potter books (suggesting that if they put an obviously female name on the cover, the target group of young boys might be reluctant to buy them), Rowling chose to adopt her grandmother's middle name, Kathleen.

Rowling wrote two novels for adults (neither of which she tried to publish) before she had the idea for Harry Potter during a four-hour train trip. According to her, by the time she reached her destination she had the characters and a good part of the plot for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in her head. She started writing during her lunch hours, and continued working on the manuscript throughout a stint in Portugal teaching English as a second language. After her marriage to Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes failed, she returned to the United Kingdom with her infant daughter and completed the book in Edinburgh, Scotland. The book was a huge success, and she has so far had four sequels published. The sales made her a multi-millionaire, and in 2001 she used the proceeds to buy a luxurious 19th century mansion on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire, Scotland, where she married her second husband, Dr. Neil Murray, on December 26th, 2001.

Soon after the fourth book was published, she published two booklets for Comic Relief, supposedly Harry Potter's school-books, whose royalties go to charity. She has contributed an uncountable amount of money and support to many charitable causes over the world, especially research and treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, from which her mother died in 1990. This death above all has affected the book, according to Rowling.

The Harry Potter series is expected to run to seven volumes, one for each year Harry spends in school. Five of these have already been published. The fifth book, titled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was delayed by an unsuccessful plagiarism suit directed towards her by rival author Nancy Stouffer (see below). Rowling took some time off writing at this point because, while in the process of writing the fourth book, she felt her workload was too heavy. She said that at one point she had considered breaking her arm to get out of writing, because the pressure on her was too much. After forcing her publishers to drop her deadline, she enjoyed three years of quiet writing and has commented she had some work done on something else she might return to when she is finished with the series. The fifth book was released on June 21, 2003.

In late 2003 she was approached by the television producer Russell T. Davies to contribute an episode to the famous British television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Although she was "amused by the suggestion", she turned the offer down as she is busy working on the next novel in the Potter series.

Naguib Mahfouz 

was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.

               

List of Work



Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth 
fiction
Arabian Nights and Days 
fiction
Children of Gebelawi 
fiction
Echoes of an Autobiography
memoir
Miramar 
fiction
Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994-2001
by Mohamed Salmawy (Editor), Naguib Mahfouz
interviews

Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994-2001

by Naguib Mahfouz, Mohamed Salmawy (Editor)

memoirs

Respected Sir

fiction

The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail

anthology, fiction

The Beginning and the End

fiction

The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street

fiction

The Day the Leader Was Killed

fiction

The Journey of Ibn Fattouma

fiction

Time and the Place

Short stories

Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales

Short stories

Edward FitzGerald
 was an English poet and writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The spelling of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen. The use here of FitzGerald conforms with that of his own publications, anthologies such as Quiller-Couch's Oxford Book of English Verse, and most reference books up through about the 1960s.

The Rubaiyat  of Omar Khayyam

This is probably the best known poem in the world and it has a fascinating history, combining medieval Persia (Iran) with India, Victorian Europe and America, and much more.

Short Story

The Test of Life

“Mom, please wake up! I don’t know what to do! I still need you!” cried young Camille as she saw her mother collapse due to a stroke. It was the very first time, a young 7-year old daughter of hers, undergoes such an unexpected event in her life. See in her mother like that filled her mind with a thousand questions unanswered. “Is my mom dead? Will she be healed? Who will guide me? Is this the end?

Seeing your mom like that is the worst event that a child could ever experience in their childhood. According to science, an unborn child inside the mother’s womb has already a connection with its soon-to-be mother. Almost ¾ of this statement really do happen in real life. That is why it is natural to most children to be closer to their father. This proofs with a tagline that goes “Mother know best”.

Camille is so close to her mother that’s why she reacted a lot when she saw her mother collapsed. Her father knew what happened and he immediately went home from work and rushed his wife’s body to the nearest hospital. Their daughter was having a non-stop cry on what she had experienced unexpectedly to her mother. Knowing what happened to their cousin, relatives were all rushing down the hospital leaving their work unattended. Tears were rushing down their faces knowing it might be the end of dear, Mila. Mila Ibardolasa is the name of Camille’s mother. Their family was very religious one. Mila was under comatose for three straight days. Camille did want to be away from her mother. She just wants to be there until her mother wakes up. She believes and prays that God will help her mother be revived from this incident. Day and night, she prayed and prayed. She never stops praying even in her classes. Until one day, her mother suddenly woke up and knew that she had to be with her daughter. Camille received the greatest gift from god. That is the revival of her mother from comatose and life that no human can ever repay.

Months had passed, therapy and operation had been made, until she finally delivered good communication to her family. One night, Mila sat down together with her daughter and husband facing the fireplace. Mila told him a true experience when she was still in coma “As I was trying to revive myself under coma. I already saw grandpapa, grand mamma, and my sister in law and huge man dressed all in white. The time I thought I was in heaven ready to enter the large gate but the huge man talked to me and said, you have to go back to your family. They still need you. It is not your time!”.                        

 As she was telling this, tears were falling down their faces and they had though to pray and give everlasting thank you to our Almighty Father. Mila thought that it was the greatest gift she had received from our Almighty Father. Giving her a chance to be with her family once again.

Life is the greatest gift that god had bestowed upon us. It is gift that no money can possibly replace. Mila knew that in every person’s life each ones undergo hardships and tests. Bases on what she experienced, she experienced “The Test of Life.”

Literature

American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and tradition.




Colonial literature
Owing to the large immigration to Boston in the 1630s, the high articulation of Puritan cultural ideals, and the early establishment of a college and a printing press in Cambridge, the New England colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However, the first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere many years earlier. Towns older than Boston include the Spanish settlements at Saint Augustine and Santa Fe, the Dutch settlements at Albany and New Amsterdam, as well as the English colony of Jamestown in present-day Virginia. During the colonial period, the printing press was active in many areas, from Cambridge and Boston to New York, Philadelphia, and Annapolis.
The dominance of the English language was hardly inevitable. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States, and discussions of early American literature commonly include texts by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Samuel de Champlain alongside English language texts by Thomas Harriot and John Smith. Moreover, we are now aware of the wealth of oral literary traditions already existing on the continent among the numerous different Native American groups. Political events, however, would eventually make English the lingua franca for the colonies at large as well as the literary language of choice. For instance, when the English conquered New Amsterdam in 1664, they renamed it New York and changed the administrative language from Dutch to English.
From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts.
Back then, some of the American literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this manner included Daniel Denton, Thomas Ashe, William Penn, George Percy, William Strachey, Daniel Coxe, Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson.
The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were also topics of early writing. A journal written by John Winthrop, The History of New England, discussed the religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower's arrival. Other religiously influenced writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford, author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47. Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. And still others, like Thomas Morton, cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the religious settlers and declared that the Native Americans were actually better people than the British.
Puritan poetry was highly religious in nature, and one of the earliest books of poetry published was the Bay Psalm Book, a set of translations of the biblical Psalms; however, the translators' intention was not to create great literature but to create hymns that could be used in worship. Among lyric poets, the most important figures are Anne Bradstreet, who wrote personal poems about her family and homelife; pastor Edward Taylor, whose best poems, the Preparatory Meditations, were written to help him prepare for leading worship; and Michael Wigglesworth, whose best-selling poem, The Day of Doom, describes the time of judgment. Nicholas Noyes was also known for his doggerel verse.
Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin, Alexander Whitaker, John Mason, Benjamin Church, and Mary Rowlandson. John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language.
Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include the Magnalia Christi Americana, the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana.
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening, a religious revival in the early 18th century that asserted strict Calvinism. Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, John Wise, and Samuel Willard. Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote a diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight.
New England was not the only area in the colonies; southern literature is represented by the diary of William Byrd of Virginia, as well as by The History of the Dividing Line, which detailed the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but which also comments on the different lifestyles of the Native Americans and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West, William Bartram described in great detail the Southern landscape and the Native American peoples whom he encountered; Bartram's book was very popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch.
As the colonies moved towards their break with England, perhaps one of the most important discussions of American culture and identity came from the French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whose Letters from an American Farmer addresses the question what is an American by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest uneasily between the oppressive aspects of the urban life (with its luxuries built on slavery) and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where the lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living.
This same period saw the birth of African American literature, through the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and, shortly after the Revolution, the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. This era also saw the birth of Native American literature, through the two published works of Samson Occom: A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "the first Indian best-seller.
The revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the period.
During the revolution itself, poems and songs such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the war's course.
During the 18th century, writing shifted focus from the Puritanical ideals of Winthrop and Bradford to the power of the human mind and rational thought. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the new human centered world. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics as described by Isaac Newton. The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment, impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670, the population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities and therefore social life led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience on the colonies. These new ideals are accounted for in the widespread popularity of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.


Arabia Literature
 Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment.
Arabic literature emerged in the 5th century with only fragments of the written language appearing before then. The Qur'an, widely regarded as the finest piece of literature work in the Arabic language,would have the greatest lasting effect on Arabic culture and its literature. Arabic literature flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, but has remained vibrant to the present day, with poets and prose-writers across the Arab world achieving increasing success.


Pre-Islamic literature
The period before the writing of the Qur'an and the rise of Islam is known to Muslims as Jahiliyyah or period of ignorance. Whilst this ignorance refers mainly to religious ignorance, there is little literature before this time, although significant oral tradition is postulated. Tales like those about Sinbad and Antar bin Shaddad were probably current, but were recorded later. The final decades of the 6th century, however, begin to show the flowering of a lively written tradition. This tradition was captured over two centuries later with two important compilations of the Mu'allaqat and the Mufaddaliyat.




The Qur'an and Islam
The Qur'an had a significant influence on the Arab language. The language used in the Qur'an is called classical Arabic and while modern Arabic is very similar, the classical is still the style to be admired. Not only is the Qur'an the first work of any significant length written in the language it also has a far more complicated structure than the earlier literary works with its 114 suras (chapters) which contain 6,236 ayat (verses). It contains injunctions, narratives, homilies, parables, direct addresses from God, instructions and even comments on itself on how it will be received and understood. It is also, paradoxically, admired for its layers of metaphor as well as its clarity, a feature it mentions itself in sura 16:103.
Although it contains elements of both prose and poetry, and therefore is closest to Saj or rhymed prose, the Qur'an is regarded as entirely apart from these classifications. The text is believed to be divine revelation and is seen by Muslims as being eternal or 'uncreated'. This leads to the doctrine of i'jaz or inimitability of the Qur'an which implies that nobody can copy the work's style.
This doctrine of i'jaz possibly had a slight limiting effect on Arabic literature; proscribing exactly what could be written. The Qur'an itself criticises poets in the 26th sura, actually called Ash-Shu'ara or The Poets:
“ And as to the poets, those who go astray follow them. ”
—26:224
This may have exerted dominance over the pre-Islamic poets of the 6th century whose popularity may have vied with the Qur'an amongst the people. There were a marked lack of significant poets until the 8th century. One notable exception was Hassan ibn Thabit who wrote poems in praise of Muhammad and was known as the "prophet's poet". Just as the Bible has held an important place in the literature of other languages, The Qur'an is important to Arabic. It is the source of many ideas, allusions and quotes and its moral message informs many works.
Aside from the Qur'an the hadith or tradition of what Muhammed is supposed to have said and done are important literature. The entire body of these acts and words are called sunnah or way and the ones regarded as sahih or genuine of them are collected into hadith. Some of the most significant collections of hadith include those by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj and Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari.
The other important genre of work in Qur'anic study is the tafsir or commentaries Arab writings relating to religion also includes many sermons and devotional pieces as well as the sayings of Ali which were collected in the 10th century as Nahj al-Balaghah or The Peak of Eloquence.


Egypt Literature
Ancient Egyptians Literature
The ancient Egyptians wrote works on papyrus as well as walls, tombs, pyramids, obelisks and more. Perhaps the best known example of ancient Egyptian literature is the Story of Sinuhe;[2] other well known works include the Westcar Papyrus and the Ebers papyrus, as well as the famous Book of the Dead. While most literature in ancient Egypt was so-called "Wisdom literature" (that is, literature meant for instruction rather than entertainment), there also existed myths, stories and biographies solely for entertainment purposes. The autobiography has been called the oldest form of Egyptian literature.
The Nile had a strong influence on the writings of the ancient Egyptians, as did Greco-Roman poets who came to Alexandria to be supported by the many patrons of the arts who lived there, and to make use of the resources of the Library of Alexandria. Many great thinkers from around the ancient world came to the city, including Callimachus of Libya and Theocritus of Syracuse. Not all of the great writers of the period came from outside of Egypt, however; one notable Egyptian poet was Apollonius of Rhodes.




Sumerian Literature
Sumerian literature is the literature written in the Sumerian language during the Middle Bronze Age. Most Sumerian literature is preserved indirectly, via Assyrian or Babylonian copies.
The Sumerians invented the first writing system, developing Sumerian cuneiform writing out of earlier proto-writing systems by about the 30th century BCE. The earliest literary texts appear from about the 27th century BCE.
The Sumerian language remained in official and literary use in the Akkadian and Babylonian empires, even after the spoken language disappeared from the population; literacy was widespread, and the Sumerian texts that students copied heavily influenced later Babylonian literature.
Sumerian literature has not been handed down to us directly, rather it has been rediscovered through archaeology. Nevertheless, the Akkadians and Babylonians borrowed much from the Sumerian literary heritage, and spread these traditions throughout the Middle East, influencing much of the literature that followed in this region.


Persian Literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language. For instance, Molana (Rumi), one of Persia's best-loved poets, born in Balkh (in what is now Afghanistan), wrote in Persian, and lived in Konya then the capital of the Seljuks. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and other parts of Central Asia. Not all this literature is written in Persian, as some consider works written by ethnic Persians in other languages, such as Greek and Arabic, to be included. At the same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians/Iranians. Particularly Indic and Turkic poets and writers have also used the Persian language in the environment of Persianate cultures.
Described as one of the great literatures of mankind, Persian literature has its roots in surviving works of Middle Persian and Old Persian, the latter of which date back as far as 522 BCE (the date of the earliest surviving Achaemenid inscription, the Behistun Inscription). The bulk of the surviving Persian literature, however, comes from the times following the Islamic conquest of Persia circa 650 CE. After the Abbasids came to power (750 CE), the Persians became the scribes and bureaucrats of the Islamic empire and, increasingly, also its writers and poets. The New Persian literature arose and flourished in Khorasan and Transoxiana because of political reasons - the early Iranian dynasties such as Tahirids and Samanids were based in Khorasan.
Persians wrote both in Persian and Arabic; Persian predominated in later literary circles. Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Sa'di, Hafiz, Rumi and Omar Khayyam are also known in the West and have influenced the literature of many countries.


Indian Literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages.
The earliest works of Indian literature were oraly transmitted. Sanskrit literature begins with the Rig Veda a collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata appeared towards the end of the first millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit literature flourished in the first few centuries of the first millennium CE , as did the Tamil Sangam literature, and the Pāli Canon.
In the medieval period, literature in Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 5th and 11th centuries respectively. Later, literature in Marathi, Bengali, various dialects of Hindi, Persian and Urdu began to appear as well. Early in the 20th century, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore became India's first Nobel laureate. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and the Jnanpith Award. Eight Jnanpith awards each have been awarded in Hindi and Kannada, followed by five in Bengali, four in Malayalam, and three in Gujarati, Marathi and Urdu and 2 each in Assamese, Tamil and Telegu.


Indian literature in archaic Indian languages
Vedic Literature
Examples of early works written in Vedic Sanskrit include the holy Hindu texts, such as the core Vedas. Other examples include the Sulba Sutras, which are some of the earliest texts on geometry..


Epic Sanskrit Literature
Ved Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki's Ramayana, written in Epic Sanskrit, are regarded as the greatest Sanskrit epics.


Classical Sanskrit literature
The famous poet and playwright Kālidāsa wrote two epics: Raghuvamsha (Dynasty of Raghu) and Kumarasambhava (Birth of Kumar Kartikeya); they were written in Classical Sanskrit rather than Epic Sanskrit. Other examples of works written in Classical Sanskrit include the Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi which standardized the grammar and phonetics of Classical Sanskrit. The Laws of Manu is an important text in Hinduism. Kālidāsa is often considered to be the greatest playwright in Sanskrit literature, and one of the greatest poets in Sanskrit literature, whose Recognition of Shakuntala and Meghaduuta are the most famous Sanskrit plays. He occupies the same position in Sanskrit literature that Shakespeare occupies in English literature. Some other famous plays were Mricchakatika by Shudraka, Svapna Vasavadattam by Bhasa, and Ratnavali by Sri Harsha. Later poetic works include Geeta Govinda by Jayadeva. Some other famous works are Chanakya's Arthashastra and Vatsyayana's Kamasutra.


Prakrit literature
The most notable Prakrit languages were the Jain Prakrit (Ardhamagadhi), Pali, Maharashtri and Shauraseni.
One of the earliest extant Prakrit works is Hāla's anthology of poems in Maharashtri, the Gāhā Sattasaī, dating to the 3rd to 5th century CE. Kālidāsa and Harsha also used Maharashtri in some of their plays and poetry. In Jainism, many Svetambara works were written in Maharashtri.
Many of Aśvaghoṣa's plays were written in Shauraseni as were a sizable number of Jain works and Rajasekhara's Karpuramanjari. Canto 13 of the Bhaṭṭikāvya is written in what is called "like the vernacular" (bhāṣāsama), that is, it can be read in two languages simultaneously: Prakrit and Sanskrit.


Pali literature
The Pali Canon is mostly of Indian origin. Later Pali literature however was mostly produced outside of the mainland Indian subcontinent, particularly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
Pali literature includes Buddhist philosophical works, poetry and some grammatical works. Major works in Pali are Jataka tales, Dhammapada, Atthakatha, and Mahavamsa. Some of the major Pali grammarians were Kaccayana, Moggallana and Vararuci (who wrote Prakrit Prakash).




Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was produced in many different parts of the world throughout the medieval and modern eras, while contemporary Hebrew literature is largely Israeli literature.


Ancient Hebrew literature
Beyond comparison, the most important such work is the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
The Mishna, compiled around 200 CE, is the primary rabbinic codification of laws as derived from the Torah. It was written in Mishnaic Hebrew, but the major commentary on it, the Gemara, was largely written in Aramaic. Many works of classical midrash were written in Hebrew.


Medieval Hebrew literature
Many works of medieval rabbinic literature were written in Hebrew, including: Torah commentaries by Abraham ibn Ezra, Rashi and others; codifications of Jewish law, such as Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, the Arba'ah Turim, and the Shulchan Aruch; and works of Musar literature (didactic ethical literature) such as Bahya ibn Paquda's Chovot ha-Levavot (The Duties of the Heart). Many works of medieval philosophical literature such as the Guide to the Perplexed and The Kuzari, as well as many works of fiction, were written in Judeo-Arabic. One work of fiction which was written in Hebrew was the "Fox Fables" by Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan, Hebrew fables which resemble Aesop's fables.
Much medieval Jewish poetry was written in Hebrew, including liturgical piyyutim in Palestine in the seventh and eighth centuries by Yose ben Yose, Yanai, and Eleazar Kalir. These poems were added to the Hebrew-language liturgy. This liturgy was compiled in book form as "the siddur" by rabbis including Amram Gaon and Saadia Gaon.
Later Spanish, Provencal, and Italian poets wrote both religious and secular poems; particularly prominent poets were Solomon ibn Gabirol and Yehuda Halevi.


Modern Hebrew literature
In addition to writing traditional rabbinic literature in Hebrew, modern Jews developed new forms of fiction, poetry, and essay-writing, which are typically called "Modern Hebrew Literature."


Eighteenth Century
Moses Hayyim Luzzatto's allegorical drama "La-Yesharim Tehillah" (1743) may be regarded as the first product of modern Hebrew literature. It has been referred to as "a poem that in its classic perfection of style is second only to the Bible." Luzzatto's pupil in Amsterdam, David Franco Mendes (1713–92), in his imitations of Jean Racine ("Gemul 'Atalyah") and of Metastasio ("Yehudit"), continued his master's work, though his works are not as respected as were Luzzatto's.
In the eighteenth century, the Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) movement worked to achieve political emancipation for Jews in Europe. Moses Mendelssohn's translation of the Hebrew Bible into German inspired interest in the Hebrew language that led to the founding of a quarterly review written in Hebrew. Other periodicals followed. Poetry by Naphtali Hirz Wessely such as "Shire Tif'eret," or "Mosiade," made Wessely, so to speak, poet laureate of the period.




Nineteenth Century
In nineteenth-century Galicia, poets, scholars, and popular writers who contributed to the dissemination of Hebrew and to the emancipation of the Jews of Galicia included:
Nachman Krochmal (1785–1840), a philosopher, theologian, and historian.
Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport (1790–1867), a rabbi, poet, and biographer
Isaac Erter (1792–1841), a satirical poet whose collection of essays, "Ha-Tzofeh le-Bet Yisrael," is one of the purest works of modern Hebrew literature, attacking Hasidic superstitions and prejudices in a vigorous and classical style.
Meir Halevy Letteris (1800–1871), a lyric poet also known for his adaption of Goethe's Faust into Hebrew.
In Amsterdam, a circle of Hebrew-language literary artists emerged in the nineteenth century, including the poet Samuel Molder (1789–1862).
Prague became an active center for the Haskalah in the nineteenth century, and the best known among the Haskalah writers there was Jehudah Loeb Jeiteles (1773–1838), author of witty epigrams ("Bene ha-Ne'urim") and of works directed against Hasidism and against superstition.
In Hungary, Hebrew-language authors included Solomon Lewison of Moor (1789–1822), author of "Melitzat Yeshurun"; Gabriel Südfeld, a poet who was the father of Max Nordau; and the poet Simon Bacher. A notable Jewish author in Romania during the nineteenth century was the physician and writer Julius Barasch.
Italian Jews of the nineteenth-century who wrote in Hebrew included I. S. Reggio (1784–1854), Joseph Almanzi, Hayyim Salomon, Samuel Vita Lolli (1788–1843). Another figure of note was Rachel Morpurgo (1790–1860), who was one of the few female writers in the Haskalah movement, and whose poems have been described as characterized by "religious piety and a mystic faith in Israel's future." The best known Italian writer was Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–65) was the first modern writer to introduce religious romanticism into Hebrew and to attack northern rationalism in the name of religious and national feeling.
Prominent Hebrew writers in the Russian empire in the nineteenth century included:
the poet and mathematician Jacob Eichenbaum (1796–1861)
the Haskalah leader Isaac Baer Levinsohn
Kalman Schulman (1826–1900), who introduced the romantic form into Hebrew
the romantic poet Micah Joseph Lebensohn (1828–52)
the Lithuanian author Mordecai Aaron Ginzburg, known as "the father of prose"
Lithuanian poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn, known as the "father of poetry," whose poems "Shire Sefat Kodesh" were extraordinarily successful.
Abraham Mapu (1808–67), the creator of the Hebrew novel, whose historical romance "Ahabat Tziyyon" exercised an important influence on the development of Hebrew.
The poet Judah Leib Gordon, also known as "Leon Gordon" (1831–1892), was a well-known satirical poet who has been characterized as "an implacable enemy of the Rabbis."


Twentieth Century
As Zionist settlement in Palestine intensified at the start of the twentieth century, Hebrew became the shared language of the various Jewish immigrant communities. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in particular worked to adapt Hebrew to the needs of the modern world, turning to Hebrew sources from all periods to develop a language that went beyond the sacred and was capable of articulating the modern experience.
Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poets and came to be recognized as Israel's national poet. Bialik contributed significantly to the revival of the Hebrew language, which before his days existed primarily as an ancient, scholarly tongue. His influence is felt deeply in all modern Hebrew literature. Bialik, like other great literary figures from the early part of the 20th century such as Ahad Ha-Am and Tchernichovsky, spent his last years in Tel Aviv, exerting a great influence on younger Hebrew writers.
The foundations of modern Israeli writing were laid by a group of literary pioneers from the Second Aliyah including Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Moshe Smilansky, Yosef Haim Brenner, David Shimoni and Jacob Fichman. In contrast, Yitzhaq Shami, was a native of Palestine, and he holds a unique place in Hebrew literature, since his work is also recognized as Palestinian literature. In 1966, Agnon won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew.
Literary translators into Modern Hebrew, most notably Leah Goldberg among others, also contributed a great deal to Israeli-Hebrew literature through bringing international literature and literary figures into Hebrew circles through translation. Goldberg herself was also noted for being a prolific writer and pioneer of Israeli children's literature as well.




Japanese literature
Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan. Eventually, Japanese literature developed into a separate style in its own right as Japanese writers began writing their own works about Japan, although the influence of Chinese literature and Classical Chinese remained until the end of the Edo period. Since Japan reopened its ports to Western trading and diplomacy in the 19th century, Western and Eastern literature have strongly affected each other and continue to do so.


Ancient literature (until 794)
Before the introduction of kanji from China, Japanese had no writing system. At first, Chinese characters were used in Japanese syntactical formats, and the result was sentences that look like Chinese but were read phonetically as Japanese. Chinese characters were further adapted, creating what is known as man'yōgana, the earliest form of kana, or syllabic writing. The earliest works were created in the Nara period. These include Kojiki (712), a work recording Japanese mythology and legendary history; Nihon Shoki (720), a chronicle with a slightly more solid foundation in historical records than Kojiki; and Man'yōshū (759), a poetry anthology. One of the stories they describe is the tale of Urashima Tarō, which has been identified as the earliest example of a story involving time travel.


Classical literature (794–1185)
Classical Japanese literature generally refers to literature produced during the Heian period, referred to as the golden era of art and literature. Genji Monogatari (early 11th century) by a woman named Murasaki Shikibu is considered the pre-eminent masterpiece of Heian fiction and an early example of a work of fiction in the form of a novel. Other important writings of this period include the Kokin Wakashū (905), a waka-poetry anthology, and Makura no Sōshi (990s), the latter written by Murasaki Shikibu's contemporary and rival, Sei Shōnagon, as an essay about the life, loves, and pastimes of nobles in the Emperor's court. The iroha poem, now one of two standard orderings for the Japanese syllabary, was also developed during the early part of this period.
The 10th century Japanese narrative, Taketori Monogatari, can be considered an early example of proto-science fiction. The protagonist of the story, Kaguya-hime, is a princess from the Moon who is sent to Earth for safety during a celestial war, and is found and raised by a bamboo cutter. She is later taken back to her extraterrestrial family in an illustrated depiction of a disc-shaped flying object similar to a flying saucer. Another notable piece of fictional Japanese literature was Konjaku Monogatarishū, a collection of over a thousand stories in 31 volumes. The volumes cover various tales from India, China and Japan. In this time, the imperial court particularly patronized the poets, most of whom were courtiers or ladies-in-waiting. Reflecting the aristocratic atmosphere, the poetry was elegant and sophisticated and expressed emotions in a rhetorical style. Editing the resulting anthologies of poetry soon became a national pastime.


Medieval literature (1185–1603)
During this period, Japan experienced many civil wars which led to the development of a warrior class, and subsequent war tales, histories, and related stories. Work from this period is notable for its insights into life and death, simple lifestyles, and redemption through killing. A representative work is The Tale of the Heike (1371), an epic account of the struggle between the Minamoto and Taira clans for control of Japan at the end of the twelfth century. Other important tales of the period include Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki (1212) and Yoshida Kenkō's Tsurezuregusa (1331).
Other notable genres in this period were renga, or linked verse, and Noh theater. Both were rapidly developed in the middle of the 14th century, the early Muromachi period.


Early-modern literature (1603–1868)
Literature during this time was written during the largely peaceful Tokugawa Period (commonly referred to as the Edo Period). Due in large part to the rise of the working and middle classes in the new capital of Edo (modern Tokyo), forms of popular drama developed which would later evolve into kabuki. The jōruri and kabuki dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon became popular at the end of the 17th century. Matsuo Bashō wrote Oku no Hosomichi (1702), a travel diary. Hokusai, perhaps Japan's most famous woodblock print artist, also illustrated fiction as well as his famous 36 Views of Mount Fuji.
Many genres of literature made their début during the Edo Period, helped by a rising literacy rate among the growing population of townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries. Although there was a minor Western influence trickling into the country from the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki, it was the importation of Chinese vernacular fiction that proved the greatest outside influence on the development of Early Modern Japanese fiction. Ihara Saikaku might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan, mixing vernacular dialogue into his humorous and cautionary tales of the pleasure quarters. Jippensha Ikku wrote Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, which is a mix of travelogue and comedy. Tsuga Teisho, Takebe Ayatari, and Okajima Kanzan were instrumental in developing the yomihon, which were historical romances almost entirely in prose, influenced by Chinese vernacular novels such as Three Kingdoms and Shui hu zhuan. Two yomihon masterpieces were written by Ueda Akinari: Ugetsu monogatari and Harusame monogatari wrote the extremely popular fantasy/historical romance Nansō Satomi Hakkenden in addition to other yomihon. Santō Kyōden wrote yomihon mostly set in the gay quarters until the Kansei edicts banned such works, and he turned to comedic kibyōshi. Genres included horror, crime stories, morality stories, comedy, and pornography—often accompanied by colorful woodcut prints.
Nevertheless, in the Tokugawa, as in earlier periods, scholarly work continued to be published in Chinese, which was the language of the learned much as Latin was in Europe.


Modern literature (1868–1945)
The Meiji period marks the re-opening of Japan to the West, and a period of rapid industrialization. The introduction of European literature brought free verse into the poetic repertoire; it became widely used for longer works embodying new intellectual themes. Young Japanese prose writers and dramatists struggled with a whole galaxy of new ideas and artistic schools, but novelists were the first to successfully assimilate some of these concepts.
A new colloquial literature developed centering on the "I novel", with some unusual protagonists such as the cat narrator of Natsume Sōseki's Wagahai wa neko de aru (I Am a Cat).[dubious – discuss] Natsume Sōseki also wrote the famous novels Botchan and Kokoro (1914). Shiga Naoya, the so called "god of the novel," and Mori Ōgai were instrumental in adopting and adapting Western literary conventions and techniques. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is known especially for his historical short stories. Ozaki Kōyō, Kyōka Izumi, and Ichiyo Higuchi represent a strain of writers whose style hearkens back to early-Modern Japanese literature.
In the early Meiji period (1868–1880s), Fukuzawa Yukichi authored Enlightenment literature, while pre-modern popular books depicted the quickly changing country. Then Realism was brought in by Tsubouchi Shōyō and Futabatei Shimei in the mid-Meiji (late 1880s–early 1890s) while the Classicism of Ozaki Kōyō, Yamada Bimyo and Kōda Rohan gained popularity. Ichiyō Higuchi, a rare woman writer in this era, wrote short stories on powerless women of this age in a simple style in between literary and colloquial. Kyōka Izumi, a favored disciple of Ozaki, pursued a flowing and elegant style and wrote early novels such as The Operating Room (1895) in literary style and later ones including The Holy Man of Mount Koya (1900) in colloquial.
Romanticism was brought in by Mori Ōgai with his anthology of translated poems (1889) and carried to its height by Tōson Shimazaki etc. and magazines Myōjō and Bungaku-kai in early 1900s. Mori also wrote some modern novels including The Dancing Girl (1890), Wild Geese (1911), then later wrote historical novels. Natsume Sōseki, who is often compared with Mori Ōgai, wrote I Am a Cat (1905) with humor and satire, then depicted fresh and pure youth in Botchan (1906) and Sanshirô (1908). He eventually pursued transcendence of human emotions and egoism in his later works including Kokoro (1914) his last and unfinished novel Light and darkness (1916).
Shimazaki shifted from Romanticism to Naturalism which was established with his The Broken Commandment (1906) and Katai Tayama's Futon (1907). Naturalism hatched "I Novel" (Watakushi-shôsetu) that describes about the authors themselves and depicts their own mental states. Neo-romanticism came out of anti-naturalism and was led by Kafū Nagai, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Kōtarō Takamura, Hakushū Kitahara and so on in the early 1910s. Saneatsu Mushanokōji, Naoya Shiga and others founded a magazine Shirakaba in 1910. They shared a common characteristic, Humanism. Shiga's style was autobiographical and depicted states of his mind and sometimes classified as "I Novel" in this sense. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, who was highly praised by Soseki, wrote short stories including Rashōmon (1915) with an intellectual and analytic attitude, and represented Neo-realism in the mid 1910s.
During the 1920s and early 1930s the proletarian literary movement, comprising such writers as Takiji Kobayashi, Denji Kuroshima, Yuriko Miyamoto, and Ineko Sata produced a politically radical literature depicting the harsh lives of workers, peasants, women, and other downtrodden members of society, and their struggles for change.
War-time Japan saw the début of several authors best known for the beauty of their language and their tales of love and sensuality, notably Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction. Ashihei Hino wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war, while Tatsuzō Ishikawa attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account of the advance on Nanjing. Writers who opposed the war include Denji Kuroshima, Mitsuharu Kaneko, Hideo Oguma, and Jun Ishikawa.


Post-war literature
World War II, and Japan's defeat, deeply influenced Japanese literature. Many authors wrote stories of disaffection, loss of purpose, and the coping with defeat. Osamu Dazai's novel The Setting Sun tells of a soldier returning from Manchukuo. Shōhei Ōoka won the Yomiuri Prize for his novel Fires on the Plain about a Japanese deserter going mad in the Philippine jungle. Yukio Mishima, well known for both his nihilistic writing and his controversial suicide by seppuku, began writing in the post-war period. Nobuo Kojima's short story "The American School" portrays a group of Japanese teachers of English who, in the immediate aftermath of the war, deal with the American occupation in varying ways.
Prominent writers of the 1970s and 1980s were identified with intellectual and moral issues in their attempts to raise social and political consciousness. One of them, Kenzaburō Ōe wrote his best-known work, A Personal Matter in 1964 and became Japan's second winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mitsuaki Inoue had long been concerned with the atomic bomb and continued in the 1980s to write on problems of the nuclear age, while Shusaku Endo depicted the religious dilemma of the Kakure Kirishitan, Roman Catholics in feudal Japan, as a springboard to address spiritual problems. Yasushi Inoue also turned to the past in masterful historical novels of Inner Asia and ancient Japan, in order to portray present human fate.
Avant-garde writers, such as Kōbō Abe, who wrote fantastic novels such as Woman in the Dunes (1960), wanted to express the Japanese experience in modern terms without using either international styles or traditional conventions, developed new inner visions. Yoshikichi Furui tellingly related the lives of alienated urban dwellers coping with the minutiae of daily life, while the psychodramas within such daily life crises have been explored by a rising number of important women novelists. The 1988 Naoki Prize went to Shizuko Todo for Ripening Summer, a story capturing the complex psychology of modern women. Other award-winning stories at the end of the decade dealt with current issues of the elderly in hospitals, the recent past (Pure- Hearted Shopping District in Kōenji, Tokyo), and the life of a Meiji period ukiyo-e artist. In international literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, a native of Japan, had taken up residence in Britain and won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize.
Haruki Murakami is one of the most popular and controversial of today's Japanese authors. His genre-defying, humorous and surreal works have sparked fierce debates in Japan over whether they are true "literature" or simple pop-fiction: Kenzaburō Ōe has been one of his harshest critics. Some of Murakami's best-known works include Norwegian Wood (1987) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–1995). Another best-selling contemporary author is Banana Yoshimoto.
Although modern Japanese writers covered a wide variety of subjects, one particularly Japanese approach stressed their subjects' inner lives, widening the earlier novel's preoccupation with the narrator's consciousness. In Japanese fiction, plot development and action have often been of secondary interest to emotional issues. In keeping with the general trend toward reaffirming national characteristics, many old themes re-emerged, and some authors turned consciously to the past. Strikingly, Buddhist attitudes about the importance of knowing oneself and the poignant impermanence of things formed an undercurrent to sharp social criticism of this material age. There was a growing emphasis on women's roles, the Japanese persona in the modern world, and the malaise of common people lost in the complexities of urban culture.
Popular fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature all flourished in urban Japan in the 1980s. Many popular works fell between "pure literature" and pulp novels, including all sorts of historical serials, information-packed docudramas, science fiction, mysteries, detective fiction, business stories, war journals, and animal stories. Non-fiction covered everything from crime to politics. Although factual journalism predominated, many of these works were interpretive, reflecting a high degree of individualism. Children's works re-emerged in the 1950s, and the newer entrants into this field, many of them younger women, brought new vitality to it in the 1980s.
Manga (comic books) have penetrated almost every sector of the popular market. They include virtually every field of human interest, such as a multivolume high-school history of Japan and, for the adult market, a manga introduction to economics, and pornography. Manga represented between 20 and 30 percent of annual publications at the end of the 1980s, in sales of some ¥400 billion per year.
Cell phone novels appeared in the early 21st century. Written by and for cell phone users, the novels—typically romances read by young women—have become very popular both online and in print. Some, such as Love Sky, have sold millions of print copies, and at the end of 2007 cell phone novels comprised four of the top five fiction best sellers.