Historical Fiction

Published in 1934, The Ways of White Folks is Langston Hughes’s collection of 14 short stories focusing on race relations in the United States. With somber tales of struggle and violence, as well as moments of irony and humor, the collection addresses racism, economic disparity, and hope. This study guide quotes and obscures Hughes’s use of the n-word.Plot Summary“Cora Unashamed” tells the story of Cora Jenkins, who works as a maid for a cruel White... Read The Ways of White Folks Summary

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The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 novel by British author Radclyffe Hall. Banned upon publication due to its lesbian theme, it tells the story of Stephen Gordon, an upper-class Englishwoman and who struggles as a lesbian with the confines of society. A subsequent obscenity trial generated significant publicity for the book, and it has since become a landmark of lesbian fiction.  Plot SummaryAfter 10 years of marriage, Sir Philip and Lady Anna Gordon are... Read The Well of Loneliness Summary

Charles Waddell Chesnutt’s short story, “The Wife of His Youth,” is available online at the National Humanities Center’s America in Class: The Making of African American Identity, Volume II: 1865-1917: Identity project. It was originally published in The Atlantic in July 1898 (Chesnutt was the first African American to publish in the highly-respected monthly). Narrated in three parts by a limited, omniscient narrator, the story recounts the reunion of a couple separated by slavery.Part 1... Read The Wife Of His Youth Summary

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The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill follows the gothic literary tradition. Hill explores traditional horror tropes, such as abandoned estates and ghost hauntings, set in an unspecified time in England’s countryside. The horror novella focuses on the first-person point-of-view of Arthur Kipps as he reflects on a ghost haunting he experienced as a young man. Hill explores themes of loss and mourning, the impact of holding onto the past, and the clash between... Read The Woman in Black Summary

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Published in 2002 in its original Arabic edition, The Yacoubian Building is a novel by Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswany. It tells the story of life in Cairo through several interwoven narratives. The edition used in this guide was translated by Humphrey Davies.Plot SummaryThe Yacoubian Building is set in Cairo around 1990, the time of the Gulf War. It follows the stories of several characters who live in the Yacoubian Building, a once-luxurious building that... Read The Yacoubian Building Summary

Told as a retrospective narrative after the narrator, Bart (John Bartle’s), part in the Iraq war is over, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, published in 2012 and Finalist for the National Book Award, begins with Bart and the rest of his platoon holding a position atop a building outside of a town called Al Tafar, Iraq, the locale at the novel’s center. Over the course of the novel, subsequent chapters will move backward and... Read The Yellow Birds Summary

Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s first novel. Simultaneously portraying the traditions and beliefs of Nigerian Ibo culture and engaging with the narrative of European colonialism in Africa, Things Fall Apart uses one man’s story to speak for many. It is considered the first modern African novel, and it is the first African novel published by a Western press. It has become a classic of African postcolonial literature and explores... Read Things Fall Apart Summary

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Pramoedya Ananta Toer—a famous Indonesian editor, essayist, and social activist—wrote This Earth of Mankind (1980)—the first book of his series The Buru Quartet—while imprisoned in the Buru Concentration Camp following a military coup that overthrew Sukarno, the first democratically elected president of Indonesia. Incarcerated for 14 years and prevented from having writing material, Toer memorized the books of his series and recited them to his fellow inmates each day until his release in 1979. The... Read This Earth of Mankind Summary

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This Side of Paradise (1920) is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was Fitzgerald’s first novel and became an instant hit, launching Fitzgerald into literary fame for its social commentary on a younger generation fueled by indulgence and materialism. This Side of Paradise is also a historical depiction of the Jazz Age, like Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, The Great Gatsby.This Side of Paradise follows Amory Blaine’s coming of age during prep school and four... Read This Side of Paradise Summary

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014) is the third book in pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante’s world-acclaimed adult fiction series The Neapolitan Novels. The four-novel series chronicles the friendship between first-person narrator Elena Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo from childhood to old age in an impoverished neighborhood in Naples, Italy. Translated by Ann Goldstein, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay documents the beginning of middle age, wherein the two women grapple with... Read Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay Summary

Three Day Road is a harrowing war narrative that details the interconnected lives of several Cree Indians during World War One. Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack are best friends who have lived as bush Indians for most of their lives. They live with Xavier’s aunt, Niska, who has taught Xavier how to live in the old ways. Xavier, in turn, has shown Elijah. One day, the boys hear about a great war taking place in... Read Three Day Road Summary

Through Black Spruce, published in 2008, is Canadian author Joseph Boyden’s second novel. His first, Three Day Road (2005), is a work of historical fiction based on the life of Xavier Bird. Through Black Spruce focuses on Xavier’s son, Will Bird, and his granddaughter, Annie Bird. Boyden uses storytelling as a narrative framework to share the Bird family’s story. Annie and Will narrate alternating chapters, telling stories about their past year as the reader also... Read Through Black Spruce Summary

To Live, a 1993 realist novel by renowned Chinese author Yu Hua, traces the struggles of protagonist Fugui and his family. Instead of using traditional chapters, the novel is broken into italicized and non-italicized sections based on whether Fugui or his unnamed interlocutor is narrating. Spanning over four decades of modern Chinese history, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists (1945-49), the founding of the People’s Republic... Read To Live Summary