World Literature

This program traces the path of African-American literature from the shores of the U.S. to the Left Bank of Paris at the end of World War II through the late 1960s. The program provides context by first exploring the New Orleans salon poetry of Desdunes and discussing the historic suppression of black activists in the U.S. After the Harlem Renaissance, an increasingly hostile climate drove writers James Baldwin and Richard Wright to Paris, where liberal racial attitudes allowed for greater artistic expression. This program traces their lives in France through remembrances of fellow artists and readings from their diaries and works. (53 minutes)

Composed of scholarly commentary, film clips, readings, reenactments, and archival materials, this program thoroughly analyzes Erich Maria Remarque's international best-seller All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque biographers Julie Gilbert and Thomas Thornton; Cambridge University's Jay Winter; All Quiet scholar/translator Brian Murdoch; Philip Caputo, author of A Rumor of War; and others provide insights into what has been called the greatest antiwar novel ever written. Additional topics include the birth of total war, the effects of modern warfare on the body and mind, and the post-war rise of Nazism. A Discovery University Production. (53 minutes)

Admiringly called a kind of Zionist Orwell" by Newsweek, Amos Oz is arguably the best-known Israeli intellectual in the world. This program profiles the controversial Oz through a mix of monologue, interview, and biography, revealing his acute understanding of family life and fanaticism. Economical in his use of language, Oz depicts the people of Israel, the country's political tribulations, and the region's history-steeped landscape with astonishing clarity and insight. (53 minutes)"

This program spotlights a diverse group of Indian writers invited to participate in the Belles Etrangeres, a French literary festival. Featured authors include award-winning Bengali novelist and social activist Mahasweta Devi; Kannada novelist U. R. Ananthamurthy, former president of the Sahitya Akademi; Hindi stylist Krishna Baldev Vaid; Malayalam writer M. Mukundan; Marathi Dalit writer Narendra Jadhav; Hindi poet Udayan Vajpeyi; Gujarati memoirist and novelist Esther David; English-language novelists Shashi Tharoor, Anita Rau Badami, Upamanyu Chatterjee, and Shauna Singh Baldwin; and the author-illustrator duo Anushka Ravishankar and Pulak Biswas. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (93 minutes)

Chinua Achebe is president of the town council in his village in Nigeria, a role that brings him more headaches than honors. He's also a storyteller who hears the music of history, weaves the fabric of memory, and sometimes offends the Emperor as well. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, took the world by storm. Achebe disagrees with the notion that literature should be divorced from the politics and economics of its society. In fact, he states, It is the storyteller...that makes us what we are, that creates history." In his storytelling role, Achebe serves as the collective memory of his society, chronicling the rough transition of African nations such as Nigeria from colonialism to democracy. In this program with Bill Moyers, Chinua Achebe, a man caught between two worlds, discusses his observations and criticisms of both African and Western politics and culture. (30 minutes)"

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 African Skies, discuss the characterization, social implications, and levels of interpretation of Things Fall Apart. Vital concepts indigenous to the Ibos of southeastern Nigeria such as oral culture, reincarnation, and negotiation-concepts essential to a deep understanding of the novel-are also presented. This program is an indispensable supplement to Achebe's best-known novel that elucidates Nigerian history and culture and the impact of colonialism. (61 minutes)

This ambitious program, produced by the award-winning film director Peter Greenaway and internationally known artist Tom Phillips, brings to life the first eight cantos of Dante's Inferno. Featuring a cast that includes Sir John Gielgud as Virgil, the cantos are not conventionally dramatized. Instead, the feeling of Dante's poem is conveyed through juxtaposed imagery that conjures up a contemporary vision of hell, and its meaning is deciphered by eminent scholars in visual sidebars who interpret Dante's metaphors and symbolism. Caution to viewers: program contains nudity. (8 segments, 11 minutes each)

Drawing upon the insights of numerous international scholars-and illustrating crucial passages with stunning animation sequences-this program guides viewers through the Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy. With detailed analysis of the poet's descent into Hell and navigation through its various levels, the program interprets Dante's motives for embarking on such a journey, explains his relationship and interaction with both Virgil and Beatrice, and describes the complex mixture of morality and humanism within the work-embodied in Dante's attitude toward those who inhabit the realms of the dead. (Portions in Italian and French with English subtitles, 74 minutes)

This short adaptation of a play by Trinidad's foremost black writer is a metaphorical exploration of relations between black and white in the postcolonial world. The plot concerns a retired white actor and his black factotum; presumably they will perform a pantomime version of Robinson Crusoe, but roles become reversed, much to the white man's bewilderment and discomfort. (26 minutes)

The historical Dr. Faust, and the legends that have arisen around him thanks to the writings of Marlowe, Lessing, and Goethe, are the subject of this fascinating program. The real Faust-excommunicated as a heretic-is presented as a victim of the political and religious tensions of his day. In a medieval world that believed in the corporeal presence of the Devil, the accusation that Faust was in league with Mephistopheles seems strangely reasonable. Faust's mysterious death is seen as contributing to the subsequent legends that developed surrounding his character. Viewers gain a sense of Europe before the Enlightenment, and of the legendary figure who continues to symbolize humankind's quest for scientific knowledge. A Deutsche Welle Production. (29 minutes, color)

A suppressor of his own writings, Franz Kafka even requested that upon his death all his extant works be destroyed-yet those very works accurately prefigured the anxieties and alienation so commonly associated with the latter part of the 20th century. This program delves into Kafka's fictional world, primarily through a gripping dramatization of The Trial, a combination of simple tale and complex parable describing Joseph K.'s bizarre arrest and execution. Professor George Steiner, of Geneva University, sheds light on the wellsprings of Kafka's disturbingly prescient vision. (59 minutes)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, and Hermann Hesse-three of Germany's greatest writers. This classic series offers an in-depth look at their lives and literary legacy. Filmed entirely on location, the programs combine letters, memoirs, rare manuscripts, paintings, and photographs with readings and excerpts from each author's best-known works. A Deutsche Welle Production. 7-part series, 27-30 minutes each.

More than three centuries ago, the seminal haiku poet Matsuo Basho traveled Japan in a spiritual quest for enlightenment. In this down-to-earth program, haiku enthusiasts from around the world including award-winning haiku poet and English teacher Visnja McMaster and haiku translator Judit Vihar, professor of Japanese studies at Eotvos Lorand University, follow in the master's footsteps as they open themselves to the haiku moment at the very places where Basho himself found inspiration. Excerpts from Basho's impressions of his journey, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, are included, as are haiku written by the trip participants. The therapeutic value of haiku-writing for traumatized children and adults is also addressed. (45 minutes)

The horror! The horror!" For Kurtz and Conrad alike, these words sum up their experience of the brutality and exploitation that characterized life in the Belgian Congo. This video/CD-ROM combination offers penetrating insights into a literary classic."

Gary Snyder and Daisy Zamora have each, in their own way, engaged in battle. In this program, the staunch defender of the natural world and the combatant in the Nicaraguan civil war wield their preferred weapon, language, which in their hands has the power to change the way people feel, think, and act. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (58 minutes)