Set in nineteenth-century rural Africa, Fiela's Child tells the story of Fiela
Komoetie and a ... For nine years Fiela raises Benjamin as one of her own
children.
2012 Summer Reading Assignment for IB English 7-8 Directions: Choose one of the novels listed below and read it over the summer break. You must complete two reading logs for the novel and turn those in the first week of school to your English 7-8 teacher. When you return in August, there will be an additional in-class assignment for the reading selections. It is recommended that you have access to the book in August when we return to class. *Many public libraries have these works available, but you can also purchase them fairly cheaply from a bookstore or even used from Amazon.com. Some of these works are available for free online from project Gutenberg, see http://www.gutenberg.org/ Novel List Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of nineteenth-century Russian society. Broken April by Ismail Kadare Two destinies intersect in Broken April. The first is that of Gjor, a young mountaineer who (much against his will) has just killed a man in order to avenge the death of his older brother, and who expects to be killed himself in keeping with the provisions of the Code that regulates life in the highlands. The second is that of a young couple on their honeymoon who have come to study the age-old customs of the place, including the blood feud. Fiela’s Child by Dalene Mathee Set in nineteenth-century rural Africa, Fiela's Child tells the story of Fiela Komoetie and a white, three-year old child, Benjamin. For nine years Fiela raises Benjamin as one of her own children. But when census takers discover Benjamin, they send him to an illiterate white family of woodcutters who claim him as their son. The House by the Medlar Tree by Giovanni Verga The story of the Malavoglia, a family of poor Sicilian fisherman, is Verga's moving rendering of the theme of mankind's struggle for self-betterment, the dignity of the struggle in the face of poverty and hardship, and the tragedy that the struggle inevitably incurs. Hunger by Knut Hamsen Hunger is the story of a Norwegian artist who wanders the streets, struggling on the edge of starvation. As hunger overtakes him, he slides inexorably into paranoia and despair. The descent into madness is recounted by the unnamed narrator in increasingly urgent and disjointed prose, as he loses his grip on reality. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo A favorite of readers for nearly 150 years, this stirring tale of crime, punishment, justice, and redemption pulses with life. Hugo’s epic novel sweeps readers from the French provinces to the back alleys of Paris, and from the battlefield of Waterloo to the bloody ramparts of Paris during the uprising of 1832.
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Perfume by Patrick Suskind In the slums of eighteenth-century France, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a perfumer. But Grenouille is not satisfied and becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on a terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. A Personal matter by Kenzaburo Oë Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial tendencies who faces a crisis: the prospect of life imprisonment in the cage of his newborn infant-monster. Should he keep it? Dare he kill it? Before he makes his final decision, Bird’s entire past seems to rise up before him, revealing itself to be a nightmare of self-deceit. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical South American town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women, this novel is brimming with truth, compassion. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie Saleem Sinai is born at midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India’s independence. He grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His health and well-being are bound to those of his nation. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour with magical gifts. The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jalloun The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. To Live: A Novel by Yu Hua After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors of the Civil War, only to return years later to face hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals - while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts of passionate love than the story of the tormented Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and of the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other.
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