Academic literature on the topic 'Authors and readers – Fiction'

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO<br>CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO<br>Em diversos países europeus, norte e latino-americanos estão disseminados entre especialistas termos que representam um tipo específico de subcategoria da literatura infantil, como picturebook, album illustré, álbum ilustrado, livro-álbum e bilderbuch, caracterizado pelo papel que a linguagem visual representa na leitura da obra. Apesar de não haver um nome específico para tal subcategoria no Brasil, há muitos exemplos de livros ilustrados brasileiros que aqui a representam. Esta pesquisa trata sobre tal objeto analisando-o sob três aspectos: primeiro, suas definições por diferentes autores brasileiros e estrangeiros, com foco nas especificidades do diálogo entre linguagens verbal e visual e uso consciente da tecnologia livro como recurso estético; segundo, em uma análise da infância sob abordagem filosófica e social, em busca dos pressupostos de leitura que o livro ilustrado, ao ser considerado um livro infantil, pode produzir; e terceiro, sobre as particularidades da criação de um objeto que muitas vezes é fruto de quatro autores - o escritor, o ilustrador, o designer e, por vezes, o editor.<br>In many countries from Europe, North and Latin America there are different terms commonly used by specialists to refer to a certain subcategory of children s literature - picturebook, album illustré, álbum ilustrado, livro-álbum, and bilderbuch - characterized by the role that visual language plays in reading of the work. Despite the want of a specific name for this subcategory in Brazil, there are many examples of Brazilian picturebooks. This research focuses on the picturebook, and analyzes it from three different perspectives: firstly, definitions presented by different Brazilian and foreign authors, with focus on the specificities of the dialog between verbal and visual languages, and the deliberate use of the book technology as an aesthetic object; secondly, analyzing childhood under a philosophical and sociological approach in search of the possible implications to reading that the categorization of the picturebook as children s book may produce; thirdly, the particularities of creating an object which often has four authors - the writer, the illustrator, the designer, and the editor.

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1997.<br>Title from title page screen, viewed June 5, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Ronald Fortune (chair), Rodger Tarr, Ray Lewis White, Douglas Hesse. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-199) and abstract. Also available in print.

This thesis constitutes the first detailed study of the life and works (published and unpublished) of the writer Giovanna Zangrandi (1910-1988). It is a study of the relationship between autobiography, fiction and history in her writing, in the light of recent developments in the criticism of autobiography and of feminist historiography and literary criticism. It aims to place Zangrandi's work in its historical and literary context and pays particular attention to the periods of fascism, the Resistance and neorealism. The thesis considers the nature of autobiography, and the implications of women writing about themselves, and analyses Zangrandi's use of autobiography, highlighting the inevitable intrusion of fiction into such writing. It uses that analysis, along with material including Zangrandi's unpublished diaries and testimonies of people who knew her, to write a biography of Zangrandi and to examine the way that she writes about the fascist period and the Resistance. The question of representing real life in fiction, rather than autobiography, is also discussed, with reference to Zangrandi's first novel and to neorealism. It is shown that, as well as her constant interest in the lives of women, her attitude to history and traditions of the Cadore, the mountainous region in the north of the Veneto, where she lived all her adult life and where nearly all her novels, short stories and autobiography are set, is of considerable importance. Her writing about the Cadore can be seen both as an attempt to write herself into those traditions, and as a means of expressing her commitment to improving society. Moreover, it is argued, her commitment takes the form of both autobiography and fiction as her concern to write about lived experience is balanced by a constant interest in the story-telling tradition of the Cadore and an interpretation of fiction that judges it to be an integral part of everyday life.

This thesis questions how Russian women's identity is attached to the textual use of public/private spaces in contemporary literature by Russian women writers by drawing from feminist theories. I. Grekova and N. Baranskaia portray female protagonists in their everyday lives, public and private worlds overlapping. While these heroines create stable support systems with other women, male figures enter as interruptive forces in women's lives. Hospital settings in several works by Russian women allow comparisons between women's fictional hospital experiences and those of Muscovite women interviewed. In L. Petrushevskaia's stories, women protagonists' identities are linked to the uncertain quality of locale and the tenuous relationships which transpire in it. Russian women's identity expressed in fiction may change as the self-perceptions of a younger generation of Russian women writers evolve toward a new, gendered concept of self.

Nancy Drew is widely recognized as an influential American cultural icon. In this paper I make a detailed examination of Nancy's initial characterization as girl sleuth in the first ten books of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, published in the 1930s. I spend another chapter examining the initial volumes of later Nancy Drew series books, specifically the 1960s rewritten texts, the 1980s-90s Nancy Drew Files series, and the contemporary Girl Detective series. My penultimate chapter discusses Nancy Drew as realized in fanfiction, or stories written by readers and fans. My emphasis is on explaining Nancy's appeal as a cultural icon and the ways fanfiction authors reinvent and appropriate that icon for their own purposes in stories. To this end I cite fanfic writers and readers' response to why they read and write Nancy Drew fanfiction, and I analyze the content and function of a sample of stories written by Nancy Drew fans. I conclude that Nancy's appeal and the basis of her status as cultural icon is due to her unique nature as a figure frozen in transition between adolescence and adulthood, along with her more conventionally admirable traits. Her Everygirl appearance when removed from that unique matrix makes her extremely adaptable to readers for their own purposes, both within the context of fanfiction and without.