Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.
Washington Irving was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.
Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest short story writer".
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans.
Saadat Hasan Manto was a Indo-Pakistani writer, playwright and author born in Ludhiana, who was active in British India and later, after the 1947 partition of India, in Pakistan.
Flash fiction, also called minimalist fiction, is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story ; the "dribble" ; the "drabble" ; "sudden fiction" ; "flash fiction" ; and "microstory".
Chekhov's gun is a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as its being fired some time later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story. Some authors, such as Hemingway, do not agree with this principle.
Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, its recognised literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.
Khalid Hasan was a Pakistani journalist and writer. Author and editor of several books, in addition to being a regular columnist for a number of English-language Pakistani newspapers, he is best known for his translations of the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto and the lyrics of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Literature of the 19th century refers to world literature produced during the 19th century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts and other aspects of 19th-century culture.
A vignette is a French loanword expressing a short and descriptive piece of writing that captures a brief period in time. Vignettes are more focused on vivid imagery and meaning rather than plot. Vignettes can be stand-alone, but they are more commonly part of a larger narrative, such as vignettes found in novels or collections of short stories.
A solo performance, sometimes referred to as a one-man show or one-woman show, features a single person telling a story for an audience, typically for the purpose of entertainment. This type of performance comes in many varieties, including autobiographical creations, comedy acts, novel adaptations, vaudeville, poetry, music and dance. In 1996, Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman became the longest running solo play in the history of Broadway.
"On The Edge of a Plain" is a sketch story by Australian writer Henry Lawson, featuring his recurring character Jack Mitchell. The story was originally published in The Bulletin on 6 May 1893, and was collected in While the Billy Boils in 1896. It is considered among Lawson's best Mitchell stories.
American literary regionalism, often used interchangeably with the term "local color", is a style or genre of writing in the United States that gained popularity in the mid-to-late 19th century and early 20th century. In this style of writing, which includes both poetry and prose, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features, such as dialect, customs, history and landscape, of a particular region, often one that is "rural and/or provincial". Regionalism is influenced by both 19th-century realism and Romanticism, adhering to a fidelity of description in the narrative but also infusing the tale with exotic or unfamiliar customs, objects, and people.
The Knickerbocker Group was a somewhat indistinct group of 19th-century American writers. Its most prominent members included Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant. Each was a pioneer in general literature—novels, poetry and journalism.
Manto is a 2015 Pakistani biographical drama film based on the life of Pakistani short-story writer Sadat Hassan Manto, starring Sarmad Khoosat in the title role. It was directed by Khoosat himself, produced by Babar Javed, and written by Shahid Nadeem, whose screenplay was adapted from Manto's short stories, particularly "Thanda Gosht", "Madari", "License", "Hatak" and "Peshawar Se Lahore". It also depicts his relationship with singer-actress Noor Jehan. The film was released on 11 September 2015, sixty years after Manto's death.
Manto is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language biographical drama film based on the life of the prominent Urdu author Saadat Hasan Manto, written and directed by Nandita Das. The film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the title character of Indo-Pakistani, author and writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Tahir Raj Bhasin plays the 1940s Hindi film superstar Shyam Chadda. Shyam was Manto's friend, confidant, and inspiration for a number of stories. Rasika Dugal plays the role of Manto's wife, Safia. Manto is based on the 1940s post-Independence period of India. Manto earned seven nominations at 64th Filmfare Awards including Best Film Critics, Best Actor Critics for Siddiqui.
Dhuan is a collection of short stories in Urdu by Saadat Hasan Manto first published in 1941.
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