Book 6

Jamaica Kincaid

by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Published 1 January 2008
Changing her name early in her career because her parents disapproved of her writing, Jamaica Kincaid crossed audiences to embrace feminist, American, postcolonial and world literature. This book offers an introduction and guided overview of her characters, plots, humor, symbols, and classic themes. Designed for students, fans, librarians, and teachers, the 84 A-to-Z entries combine commentary from interviewers, feminist historians, and book critics with numerous citations from primary and secondary sources and comparative literature. The companion features a chronology of Kincaid's life, West Indies heritage and works, and includes a character name chart.

Book 21

Octavia E. Butler

by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Published 16 September 2022
Slow to rise in the literary world, Octavia Estelle Butler cultivated musings on earth’s future, reaching massive critical acclaim in the process. This companion will complement book club discussions and classroom lessons for the closest possible readings of Butler’s science fiction and her texts on racism and pollution. A maven of speculative fiction so prescient that it hovers between tocsin and prophecy, Butler survives through her print stories, essays, novels and musings on individualism and compromise. This book guides the reader on a variety of Butler pieces, from her most obscure titles to her historical entries and pieces that speculate upon science, metaphysics, linguistics, psychology, writing and religion. The text serves as a guide through the depths of Octavia Butler’s works and reinforces the reasons for which her name so often appears on reading lists for higher learning.


Isabel Allende

by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Published 1 January 2013
Isabel Allende--known as """"la Famosa"""" to her fellow Chileans--is the world's most widely read Spanish-language author. Her career coincides with the emergence of multiculturalism and global feminism, and her powerfully honest, revelatory works touch the pulse points of humankind. Her bravura study of the interwoven roles of women in family history opens the minds of outsiders to the sufferings of women and their children during years of social and political nightmare.
This reference work provides an introduction to Allende's life as well as a guided overview of her body of work. Designed for the fan and scholar alike, this text features an alphabetised, fully-annotated listing of major terms in the Allende canon, including fictional characters, motifs, historical events, and themes. A comprehensive index is included.

Ken Follett

by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Published 28 February 2025