Other his famous works are: The Wayward Bus, East of Eden, Travels with Charley.
Jerome David Salinger – expressed the feelings of the post-war generation in novel The Catcher in the Rye, which is about a sincere and pure teenager who is disgusted by the frauds and insincerity of people around himself. Salinger wrote also nice short stories – Nine Stories.
William Styron – is influenced by Faulkner and writes novels about the South of US. His excellent novel called Sophie’s Choice. It deals with the problem of Nazis concentration camps and conditions of human life in peace influences by a bitter war experience.
Alex Haley – is a coloured writer (African American). He is famous through his chronicle Roots, which goes back to the seventh generation of his ancestors. The first African, Kunta Kinte was enslaved and brought to America.
Joseph Heller – wrote Catch 22. It is an antiwar novel connecting absurd black humour.
20th century poetry is famous for a group of poets and artists who gathered around 1956 in San Francisco and are called “Beat Generation”. They practised free life, behaviour and new use of language. They were disgusted by corrupt, commercial and conventional world around them. They were influenced also by Zen Buddhism teaching.
Allen Gingsberg – visited our country several times, wrote Howl and Other Poems.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti – he is still living, he visited Prague, The Naked Lunch.
Jack Kerouac – he wrote the Bible of Beat Generation On the Road. This novel is about friends wandering on their motorcycles back and forth across the continent and shows us their “beat” characters. Work: Mexico City Blues, The Town and the City, Mag.
Eugene O’Neil – won a Nobel Prize. He is a playwriter. He shows the bad sides of human characters and the difficult conditions people in this world have. Work: Desire under the Elms.
Tennessee Williams – shows in his plays people’s crude, selfish, violent and cruel motives of their behaviour as well as their deep desire to love and be loved. Work: A Streetcar Named Desire, Orpheus Descending, A Ca on a Hot Tin Roof. See enclosed paper.


British Literature

1) The Middle Ages
The oldest literature monument of the Anglo-Saxon period is the old Germanic legend about Beowulf. This heroic poem is about the strong and courageous pagan hero Beowulf.
John Wycliffe
is a professor of Oxford University. With his students he translated the whole Bible into English. He influenced Master John Huss and our Hussite movement very much.
2) The Renaissance and Humanism
Geoffrey Chaucer: Cantebury Tales – brilliant portrait of 30 pilgrims who travel to Canterbury and they were saying stories each other, each one said four stories.