... what happened during that time period, what the people were experiencing, the emotional state of a country, the impact of a single person all merely examples of stories that helped share a larger one. More often than not, an explanation is not even necessary. Nadine Gordimer may not be a household name here in the United ... life as a citizen of Johannesburg, South Africa. Originally born just outside of Johannesburg, Nadine began to gain a political identity at a young age as the daughter of two Jewish immigrant parents, who spent much of their own young adult lives under repression in ...

• Word Count: 1018
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... in a prefatory note that what follows is "a work of fiction." Fiction is a complicated term in O'Brien's world, though; the stories are deemed true sometimes because they happened that way and sometimes because they convey some larger truth about the Vietnam experience. This book suggests that ... stories often communicate a more accurate notion of the truth than even experience can, which makes them compelling whether or not the reader ... Cowling, the protagonist, is haunted from a young age by the apocalyptic terror of his world. Despite his awareness that his parents, his wife, and...

• Word Count: 781
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate