50 Must-Read Modern Classics in Translation From Around the World

50 Must-Read Modern Classics in Translation From Around the World Did you know that only about 3% of books published in the U.S. each year are translations? The number varies from year to year, but regardless, its low. And yet reading literature from countries and languages other than ones own has never been more important. Reading books in translation can offer us a different way of looking at the world. It can teach us about other cultures and their histories. It can help us understand ourselves better. And it can also be fun. Missing out on translations is missing out on great art and great reading experiences. So below Ive compiled a list of 50 must-read modern classics in translation. For the purposes of this post, Ive defined a modern classic as a great book published within the last fifty years, so from 1968 on. My first pick has some stories from earlier than that dateâ€"and some from laterâ€"but otherwise, everything here was released in the last 50 years. The books are arranged by publication date, with the authors country of origin noted as well. Book descriptions come from Goodreads. Do you have a favorite book in translation I missed? The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, Translated by Katrina Dodson Now, for the first time in English, are all the stories that made her a Brazilian legend: from teenagers coming into awareness of their sexual and artistic powers to humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies to old people who don’t know what to do with themselves. (Brazil, 1960sâ€"1970s) The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, Translated by Thomas Teal In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summerâ€"its sunlight and stormsâ€"into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. (Finland, 1972) The Box Man by Kobo Abe, Translated by E. Dale Saunders In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. (Japan, 1973) Fatelessness by Imre Kertész, Translated by Tim Wilkinson At the age of 14 Georg Koves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn’t particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, You are no Jew. In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, Georg remains an outsider. (Hungary, 1973) History by Elsa Morante, Translated by Lily Tuck History was written nearly thirty years after Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia spent a year in hiding among remote farming villages in the mountains south of Rome. There she witnessed the full impact of the war and first formed the ambition to write an account of what history…does when it reaches the realm of ordinary people struggling for life and bread. (Italy, 1974) Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes, Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden [The novel] covers 20 centuries of European and American culture, and prominently features the construction of El Escorial by Philip II. The title is Latin for Our earth. Modeled on James Joyces Finnegans Wake, Terra Nostra shifts unpredictably between the sixteenth century and the twentieth, seeking the roots of contemporary Latin American society in the struggle between the conquistadors and indigenous Americans. (Mexico, 1975) Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, Translated by Michael Henry Heim Too Loud a Solitude is a tender and funny story of Hantaâ€"a man who has lived in a Czech police stateâ€"for 35 years, working as compactor of wastepaper and books. In the process of compacting, he has acquired an education so unwitting he cant quite tell which of his thoughts are his own and which come from his books. (Czechoslovakia, 1976) Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa, Translated by Helen R. Lane Mario Vargas Llosas brilliant, multilayered novel is set in the Lima, Peru, of the authors youth, where a young student named Marito is toiling away in the news department of a local radio station. His young life is disrupted by two arrivals. (Peru, 1977) If on a Winters Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, Translated by William Weaver Italo Calvinos novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winters Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. (Italy, 1979) So Long A Letter by Mariama Bâ, Translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas The brief narrative, written as an extended letter, is a sequence of reminiscencesâ€"some wistful, some bitterâ€"recounted by recently widowed Senegalese schoolteacher Ramatoulaye Fall. Addressed to a lifelong friend, Aissatiou, it is a record of Ramatoulayes emotional struggle for survival after her husband betrayed their marriage by taking a second wife. (Senegal, 1979) The name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Translated by William Weaver The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. (Italy, 1980) The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, Translated by Magda Bogin Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba. (Chile, 1982) The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, Translated by Joel Rotenberg The logic of capitalism, boom and bust, is unremitting and unforgiving. But what happens to human feeling in a completely commodified world? In  The Post-Office Girl, Stefan Zweig, a deep analyst of the human passions, lays bare the private life of capitalism. (Austria, 1982) The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, Translated by Joachim Neugroschel Erika Kohut is a piano teacher at the prestigious and formal Vienna Conservatory, who still lives with her domineering and possessive mother. Her life appears to be a seamless tissue of boredom, but Erika, a quiet thirty-eight-year-old, secretly visits Turkish peep shows at night to watch live sex shows and sadomasochistic films. (Austria, 1983) The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg, Translated by Dick Davis This powerful novel is set against the background of Italy from 1939 to 1944, from the anxious months before the country entered the war, through the war years, to the Allied victory with its trailing wake of anxiety, disappointment, and grief. (Italy, 1984) The Lover by Marguerite Duras, Translated by Barbara Bray Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras’s childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France’s colonial empire. (France, 1984) The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Translated by michael Henry Heim In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. (Czechoslovakia, 1984) Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade by Assia Djebar, Translated by Dorothy S. Blair Assia Djebar intertwines the history of her native Algeria with episodes from the life of a young girl in a story stretching from the French conquest in 1830 to the War of Liberation of the 1950s. The girl, growing up in the old Roman coastal town of Cherchel, sees her life in contrast to that of a neighboring French family, and yearns for more than law and tradition allow her to experience. (Algeria, 1985) Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, Translated by Edith Grossman In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairsâ€"yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. (Colombia, 1985) The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun, Translated by Alan Sheridan In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan fathers effort to thwart the consequences of Islams inheritance laws regarding female offspring. (Morocco, 1985) Death in Spring by Mercé Rodoreda, Translated by Martha Tennent The novel tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless townâ€"burying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town to discover if they will be washed away by a floodâ€"through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence. (Spain, 1986) The Door by Magda Szabó, Translated by Len Rix A busy young writer struggling to cope with domestic chores, hires a housekeeper recommended by a friend. The housekeepers reputation is one built on dependable efficiency, though she is something of an oddity. Stubborn, foul-mouthed and with a flagrant disregard for her employers opinions she may even be crazy. (Hungary, 1987) Before by Carmen Boullosa, Translated by Peter Bush Part bildungsroman, part ghost story, part revenge novel, Before tells the story of a woman who returns to the landscape of her childhood to overcome the fear that held her captive as a girl. (Mexico, 1989) LIke Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, Translated by Thomas Christensen and CArol Christensen A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. (Mexico, 1989) A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe, Translated by Kunioki Yanagishita and William Wetherall A Quiet Life is narrated by Ma-chan, a twenty-year-old woman. Her father is a famous and fascinating novelist; her older brother, though severely brain damaged, possesses an almost magical gift for musical composition; and her mothers life is devoted to the care of them both. (Japan, 1990) A Heart So White by Javier Marias, Translated by Margaret Jull Costa Javier Maríass A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesnt really want to know. (Spain, 1992) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Translated by Jay Rubin In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wifes missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. (Japan, 1994) Blindness by José Saramago, Translated by Giovanni POntiero A city is hit by an epidemic of white blindness that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides her charges…through the barren streets, and their procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. (Portugal, 1995) The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald, Translated by Michael Hulse The Rings of Saturn is his record of these travels, a phantasmagoria of fragments and memories, fraught with dizzying knowledge and desperation and shadowed by mortality. As in The Emigrants, past and present intermingle: the living come to seem like supernatural apparitions while the dead are vividly present. (Germany, 1995) Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, Translated by Keith Gessen On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown…and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. (Belarus, 1997) The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño, Translated by Natasha Wimmer New Year’s Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in poetry, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their quest: to track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty years later Belano and Lima are still on the run. (Chile, 1998) Delirium by Laura Restrepo, Translated by Natasha Wimmer In this remarkably nuanced novel, both a gripping detective story and a passionate, devastating tale of eros and insanity in Colombia, internationally acclaimed author Laura Restrepo delves into the minds of four characters. (Colombia, 2000) An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira, Translated by Chris Andrews An astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a mans life that became a lightning rod for inspiration. (Argentina, 2000) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Translated by Lucia Graves The international literary sensation, about a boys quest through the secrets and shadows of postwar Barcelona for a mysterious author whose book has proved as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget. (Spain, 2001) Snow by Orhan Pamuk, Translated by Maureen Freely Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mothers funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school. (Turkey, 2002) A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz, Translated by Nicholas de Lange A family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. A Tale of Love and Darkness is the story of a boy who grows up in war-torn Jerusalem, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. (Israel, 2002) The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, Translated by Humphrey Davies All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building…a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed scientist of women; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires. (Egypt, 2002) The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, Translated by Stephen Snyder He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problemâ€"ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him. And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. (Japan, 2003) The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka UgreÅ¡ic, Translated by Michael Henry Heim Abandoning literature, Tanja encourages her students to indulge their Yugonostalgia in essays about their personal experiences during their homelands cultural and physical disintegration. But Tanjas act of academic rebellion incites the rage of one renegade member of her classâ€"and pulls her dangerously close to anotherâ€"which, in turn, exacerbates the tensions of a life in exile that has now begun to spiral seriously out of control. (Yugoslavia, Netherlands, 2004) Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou, Translated by Helen Stevenson Alain Mabanckou’s riotous new novel centers on the patrons of a run-down bar in the Congo. In a country that appears to have forgotten the importance of remembering, a former schoolteacher and bar regular nicknamed Broken Glass has been elected to record their stories for posterity. But Broken Glass fails spectacularly at staying out of trouble. (Republic of the Congo, 2005) The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Translated by Alison Anderson We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. (France, 2006) The Proof of the Honey by Salwa Al Neimi, Translated by Cal Perkins The Proof of the Honey is a superb celebration of female pleasure. A Syrian scholar working in Paris is invited to contribute to a conference on the subject of classic erotic literature in Arabic. The invitation provides occasion for her to evoke memories from her own life, to exult in her personal liberty, her lovers, her desires, and to revisit moments of shared intimacy with other women as they discuss life, love, and sexual desire. (Syria, 2007) The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Translated by Deborah Smith Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hyes decision to embrace a more plant-like existence is a shocking act of subversion. (South Korea, 2007) To the End of the Land by David Grossman, Translated by Jessica Cohen Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer’s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the notifiers who might darken her door with the worst possible news. (Israel, 2008) The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller, Translated by Philip Boehm It was an icy morning in January 1945 when the patrol came for seventeen-year-old Leo Auberg to deport him to a camp in the Soviet Union. Leo would spend the next five years in a coke processing plant, shoveling coal, lugging bricks, mixing mortar, and battling the relentless calculus of hunger that governed the labor colony: one shovel load of coal is worth one gram of bread. (Romania, Germany, 2009) My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove KnausgÃ¥rd, Translated by Don Bartlett Almost ten years have passed since Karl O. Knausgaards father drank himself to death. He is now embarking on his third novel while haunted by self-doubt. Knausgaard breaks his own life story down to its elementary particles, often recreating memories in real time, blending recollections of images and conversation with profound questions in a remarkable way. (Norway, 2009) Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye, Translated by John Fletcher This is the story of three women who say no: Norah, a French-born lawyer who finds herself in Senegal, summoned by her estranged, tyrannical father to save another victim of his paternity; Fanta, who leaves a modest but contented life as a teacher in Dakar to follow her white boyfriend back to France, where his delusional depression and sense of failure poison everything; and Khady, a penniless widow put out by her husband’s family with nothing but the name of a distant cousin (France, 2009) Touch by Adania Shibli, Translated by Paula Haydar Touch centers on a girl, the youngest of nine sisters in a Palestinian family. In the singular world of this novella, this young womans everyday experiences resonate until they have become as weighty as any national tragedy. (Palestine, 2010) My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Translated by Ann Goldstein My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrantes inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. (Italy, 2011) The Last Lover by Can Xue, Translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen In Can Xue’s extraordinary book, we encounter a full assemblage of husbands, wives, and lovers. Entwined in complicated, often tortuous relationships, these characters step into each other’s fantasies, carrying on conversations that are forever guessing games. Their journeys reveal the deepest realms of human desire. (China, 2014) Want even more translation in your life? Check out this list of 100 must-read classics in translationâ€"books from 50 up to thousands of years ago.

The Cask Of Amontillado, By Edgar Allen Poe And Young...

Literature about Evil The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the short stories The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe and Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Specifically it will discuss the phenomenon of evil in the human heart as it appears in these two works. Evil lives in everyone, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. These two chilling tales show two different sides of evil, but they both illustrate how evil can corrupt a person right down to their very heart and soul. The narrator, Montresor, in The Cask of Amontillado is so evil in his heart that he must gain revenge over his adversary at all costs. His family motto is Nemo me impune lacessit [No one assails me with impunity], and he feels his friend Fortunato has somehow insulted this honor, and so he seeks the ultimate revenge. He walls his friend up inside a cellar and leaves him there to die. Clearly, the narrator is insane, and that is a commonality between these two stories. Both the protagonists are insane or mad, for whatever reason. Goodman Brown goes mad in the forest when he believes he has encountered the devil, and the reader never knows what sets Montresor off, except it is some kind of insult. The authors are very skillful in making both these men quite unsympathetic characters, and that heightens the sense of evil surrounding them both. Montresor may seem to be the more evil in nature, but Goodman Brown has his own issues of evil toShow MoreRelatedYoung Goodman Brown And A Cask Of Amontillado Analysis1110 Words   |  5 PagesYoung Goodman Brown and A Cask of Amontillado both incorporate a gothic theme to the simple yet intricate plotline they hold. Within the two short stories, irony scatters, adding to the overall grim theme. Although they use the same 3 types of irony, the authors use them differently and similarly at the same time. In Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe, there are many examples of situational irony that are used comparably in both texts. DramaticRead MoreTheme Of Young Goodman Brown And The Cask Of Amontillado740 Words   |  3 Pages â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† by Nathaniel Hawthorne and â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† by Edgar Allen Poe have surplus amounts of irony that animate both short stories. Demented felonious antagonists and clueless protagonists cause the stories to seem similar. Montresor, a cunning and licentious human from â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† and caring Goodman from â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† persistently use verbal irony, nevertheless, the irony is unique to each story. In â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† and â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†Read MoreAnalysis Of A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner1407 Words   |  6 Pagesand buy food? 2. Choose one story in that contains significant imagery or symbolism and discuss how that element contributes to the central meaning of the story. Discuss either imagery or symbolism – Young Goodman Brown – symbolism is the woods – his own doom In the short story Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses significant symbolism to portray the protagonist’s struggle as a once religious resident of Salem Village, who abandon’s his beliefs, and chooses the road to damnation. His

Case Study Southern Builders Inc. Vs. Shaw Development Llc

Case 1: â€Å"Southern Builders Inc. vs. Shaw Development LLC, Case No. 19-C-07-011405 (Md. Cir. Ct. 2007)†. Facts and Issues. This is one of the first lawsuits related to green construction in the United States. In this case, Shaw Development as the owner, appointed Southern Builders Inc. as the contractor, to construct a $7.5 million, 23-unit condominium and restaurant project, known as Captain’s Galley, in Somerset County, Maryland along with obtaining the LEED-Silver certification. The thing was Southern Builders, in January 2007, filed a $54,000 mechanic’s lien in the Circuit Court against the owner. On the other hand, Shaw Development, subsequently filed a counterclaim alleging breach of contract, argued that it had lost $635,000 of the state green-building tax credits (8%) because of the lateness in the contractor’s performance. The issue was that the contract failed to spell out the tax credit secured provisions which relied on the environmental design of the project; additionally, specifically determining roles and duties for each project team member in the project contracts is extremely necessary to successful green-building-project delivery. If there are ambiguities as for varied services or work, problems will instantaneously occur. Indeed, the owner and the prime contractor have signed the contract according to the AIA standard form (A101‑1997) which did not clearly specify the responsibilities associated with the tax credits or specifically determine any greenShow MoreRelatedManaging Information Technology (7th Edition)239873 Words   |  960 PagesCONTENTS: CASE STUDIES CASE STUDY 1 Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (A): The Role of the Operating Manager in Information Systems CASE STUDY I-1 IMT Custom Machine Company, Inc.: Selection of an Information Technology Platform CASE STUDY I-2 VoIP2.biz, Inc.: Deciding on the Next Steps for a VoIP Supplier CASE STUDY I-3 The VoIP Adoption at Butler University CASE STUDY I-4 Supporting Mobile Health Clinics: The Children’s Health Fund of New York City CASE STUDY I-5 DataRead MoreManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 PagesHughes−Ginnett−Curphy The Art of M A: Merger/Acquisitions/Buyout Guide, Third Edition Reed−Lajoux and others . . . This book was printed on recycled paper. Management http://www.mhhe.com/primis/online/ Copyright  ©2005 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrievalRead MoreExploring Corporate Strategy - Case164366 Words   |  658 Pages 22/10/2007 11:54 Page 597 CASE STUDIES ECS8C_C01.qxd 22/10/2007 11:54 Page 598 ECS8C_C01.qxd 22/10/2007 11:54 Page 599 Guide to using the case studies The main text of this book includes 87 short illustrations and 15 case examples which have been chosen to enlarge speciï ¬ c issues in the text and/or provide practical examples of how business and public sector organisations are managing strategic issues. The case studies which follow allow the reader to extendRead MoreInnovators Dna84615 Words   |  339 Pagestricks that any person and any team can use today to discover the new ideas that solve the important problems. Buy it now and read it tonight. Tomorrow you will learn more, create more, inspire more.† Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit Inc. â€Å" e Innovator’s DNA sheds new light on the once-mysterious art of innovation by showing that successful innovators exhibit common behavioral habits—habits that can boost anyone’s creative capacity.† author, e 7 Habits of Highly E ective People

Shaka Zulu Free Essays

Shaka Zulu was the first son of the chieftain Senzangakhona and Nandi, a daughter of Bhebhe, the past chief of the Elangeni tribe, born near present-day Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal Province. He was conceived out of wedlock somewhere between 1781 and 1787. Shaka almost certainly spent his childhood in his mother’s settlements. We will write a custom essay sample on Shaka Zulu or any similar topic only for you Order Now Shaka served as an Mthethwa warrior for perhaps as long as ten years, and distinguished himself with his courage, though he did not, as legend has it, rise to great position. Dingiswayo, having himself been exiled after a failed attempt to oust his father, had, along with a number of other groups in the region (including Mabhudu, Dlamini, Mkhize, Qwabe, and Ndwandwe, many probably responding to slaving pressures from southern Mozambique) helped develop new ideas of military and social organization. On the death of Senzangakhona, Dingiswayo aided Shaka to defeat his brother and assume leadership in 1816. He became the leader of the Zulu Kingdom from 1816 through 1828. As Shaka became more respected by his people, he was able to spread his ideas with greater ease. Because of his background as a soldier, Shaka taught the Zulus that the most effective way of becoming powerful quickly was by conquering and controlling other tribes. His teachings greatly influenced the social outlook of the Zulu people. The Zulu tribe soon developed a â€Å"warrior† mind frame, which made it easier for Shaka to build up his armies. Dingane and Mhlangana, Shaka’s half-brothers, appear to have made at least two attempts to assassinate Shaka before they succeeded, with perhaps support from Mpondo elements, and some disaffected iziYendane people. While the British colonialists considered his regime to be a future threat, allegations that white traders wished his death are problematic given that Shaka had granted concessions to whites prior to his death, including the right to settle at Port Natal (now Durban). Shaka had made enough enemies among his own people to hasten his demise. It came relatively quickly after the devastation caused by Shaka’s erratic behavior after the death of his mother Nandi. According to Donald Morris in this mourning period Shaka ordered that no crops should be planted during the following year, no milk was to be used, and any woman who became pregnant was to be killed along with her husband. At least 7,000 people who were deemed to be insufficiently grief-stricken were executed, though it wasn’t restricted to humans, cows were slaughtered so that their calves would know what losing a mother felt like. The Zulu monarch was killed by three assassins sometime in 1828; September is the most often cited date, when almost all available Zulu manpower had been sent on yet another mass sweep to the north. Some older histories have doubted the military and social innovations customarily attributed to Shaka, denying them outright, or attributing them variously to European influences. More modern researchers argue that such explanations fall short, and that the general Zulu culture which included other tribes and clans, contained a number of practices that Shaka could have drawn on to fulfill his objectives—whether in raiding, conquest or hegemony. Shaka is often said to have been dissatisfied with the long throwing â€Å"assegai,† and credited with introducing a new variant of the weapon — the â€Å"iklwa,† a short stabbing spear with a long, sword-like spearhead. Shaka is also supposed to have introduced a larger, heavier shield made of cowhide and to have taught each warrior how to use the shield’s left side to hook the enemy’s shield to the right, exposing his ribs for a fatal spear stab. The throwing spear was not discarded but used as an initial missile weapon before close contact with the enemy; when the shorter stabbing spear was used in hand to hand combat. How to cite Shaka Zulu, Essay examples

The Seminoles Essays - , Term Papers, Research Papers

The Seminoles The Seminole Indians are a tribe of Indians who now have territory and reservations in Florida and Oklahoma. They once belonged to the Muskogee tribe that lived along streams in what are now southern Georgia and Alabama. The Seminoles moved to Florida and Oklahoma around 1708 when the white men drove them out of their homes and took their land. The Seminoles adjusted well to life in Florida. In the late 1700s and early 1800s Florida was a territory of Spain, that made the Seminoles Spanish citizens. Like white men, they had black slaves, but they treated their slaves with respect. In the early 1800s General Andrew Jackson attacked the few Seminole villages left in Georgia and forced most of the Indians to flee to their relatives in Florida. Among them were a young woman and her son, Osceola, who would grow up to become a great Seminole leader. This attack started the First Seminole War. Florida was sold to the United States by Spain in 1819. In 1823 the Seminoles signed a treaty giving up most of their land. Once they moved into their new reservations in Central Florida Andrew Jackson who was president at the time signed the Indian Removal Act which required all Seminoles to move to the Indian Territory, which is now known as Oklahoma. Most of the Seminoles wouldnt go. This started the Second Seminole War. During the Second Seminole War many of the Seminoles gave up and went to Oklahoma. The ones that didnt had to hide deep in the Everglades where the white men couldnt find them. Osceola was taken prisoner by the United States government. He died in prison. The Florida Seminoles never signed a formal peace treaty with the United States. The Seminole Indians are still living in reservations in Florida and Oklahoma, The Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc., has its headquarters in Hollywood, Florida, where there is a replica of a traditional chickee village. The Seminole Indians have been in what is now The United States of America for over fifteen thousand years. They have been through many wars and have had many tragedies along the way. The Seminoles always were a strong tribe and continue to be a strong tribe.

Sensation Exhibit essays

Sensation Exhibit essays The Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibit redefined that art in any form is and always will be the highest form of expression. The exhibit, in my opinion, is strangely interesting and the diversity between individualism is very apparent. The many works proved the exhibits name "Sensation" to be just that. The images stay consistent of mutants, preserved sea monsters, human blood, genitalia, and an abundance of death. I was left pondering over the vivid imaginations and distorted thoughts of the young artists', and especially Chris Ofili. Jake and Dinos Chapman's "Great Deeds Against the Dead" showed great similarities to that of Francisco Goya's "Saturn Devouring One of His Sons". Both works imply horrific torture in the form of cannibalism, and the beauty of it lies in the disbelief that it could never happen, when in reality forms of cannibalism do and have existed. I found the Chapman's "DNA Zygotic" and "Tragic Anatomies" to be very strange, but at the same time it made me think about the possibility of something like this ever coming true, considering science has been in a sense playing God with their continued experimentations with cloning. Marc Quinn's "Self", a life-size sculpture of his own head, and created out of nine pints of his own frozen blood is what I consider to be taking right to expression a little far. Is Quinn someone who gets pleasure out of pain, or is his intention focused on the fact that he is the art. The "Plan", by artist Jenny Saville, is a painting of a nude woman that is not the nor m for my generation's idea of sensuality. I found it to be alot like that of Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", because Venus is portrayed as a divine goddess, which wasn't measured physically but on a spiritual basis. Ron Mueck's "Mask" showed beautiful detail in the face of the apparently aggravated man, but it can never size up to the enormously life-like image of "Dead Dad". I couldn't take m...

Noise Distraction

Noise Distraction Are you distracted by noise? Some students struggle to pay attention in class and other study areas because small background noises interfere with their concentration. Background noise does not affect all students in the same way. There are a few factors that may determine whether noise distraction is a problem for you. Noise Distraction and Learning Styles Three of the most commonly recognized learning styles are visual learning, tactile learning, and auditory learning. It is important to discover your own prominent learning style to determine how to study most effectively, but its also important to know your learning style in order to recognize potential problems. Studies have shown that auditory learners are most distracted by background noise. But how will you know if you are an auditory learner? Auditory learners often: Talk to themselves while reading or studyingMove their lips while readingAre better at speaking than writingSpell better out loudHave difficulty visualizing thingsCant follow conversations when the TV is onCan mimic songs and tunes well If you feel that these traits describe your personality, you may need to pay special attention to your study habits and the location of your study space. Noise Distraction and Personality Type Two personality types that you may recognize are introversion and extraversion. It is important to know that these types have nothing to do with ability or intelligence; these terms merely describe the way that different people function. Some students are deep thinkers who tend to talk less than others. These are common traits of introverted students. One study has shown that noise distraction can be more harmful to introverted students than to extroverted students when it comes to study time. Introverted students can experience more difficulty understanding what they are reading in a noisy environment. Introverts typically: Like to work independentlyAre confident about their own opinionsThink deeply about thingsReflect and analyze more before acting on somethingCan focus on one thing for a long timeEnjoy readingAre happy in their own little worldHave a few deep friendships If these traits sound familiar to you, you may want to read more about introversion. You may discover that you need to adjust your study habits to cut down on the potential for noise distraction. Avoiding Noise Distraction Sometimes we dont realize how much background noise can affect our performance. If you suspect that noise interference is affecting your grades, you should consider the following recommendations. Turn off the mp3 and other music when you study: You may love your music, but its not good for you when youre reading.Stay away from the TV when doing homework: Television shows contain plots and conversations that can trick your brain into distraction when you dont even realize it! If your family watches TV at one end of the house during homework time, try to move to the other end.Buy earplugs: Small, expanding foam earplugs are available at large retail stores and auto stores. Theyre great for blocking out the noise.Consider investing in some noise-blocking earphones: This is a more expensive solution, but it might make a big difference in your homework performance if you have a serious problem with noise distraction. For more information you may consider: The Effects of Noise Distraction on SAT Scores, by Janice M. Chatto and Laura ODonnell. Ergonomics, Volume 45, Number 3, 2002,pp. 203-217.