Post Type Archives: VBC Events

It would be difficult to choose two more distinguished authors in recent literature than Gabriel García Márquez and J. M. Coetzee. For one thing, each has won the ultimate literary award, the Nobel Prize in Literature: García Márquez in 1982, and Coetzee in 2003. Each author has also hit that “sweet spot” of success: their books sell well, […]

I don’t think we can overstate what a literary phenomenon Ferrante has been in recent years. My Brilliant Friend is the first installment in Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, a quartet of books centered on the tempestuous lives – and tormented friendship – of the unforgettable Lila and Elena and their love-hate relation to their magnificent and complex hometown, Naples. A quote […]

Few names in French and European literature are as illustrious as Balzac’s. Born in 1799, he would go on to become one of the most innovative and prolific pioneers in the history of the modern novel, and his influence would extend over such celebrated names as Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, and Henry James, to name only a […]

A New Zealander, Eleanor Catton burst onto the international scene with her second novel, The Luminaries, which won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author to win the prize at 28. In addition to her literary work, she is also a prolific screenwriter whose work includes the acclaimed 2020 film version of Emma, an adaptation of Jane […]

Consistently named one of the “greatest books of all time,” Camus’ The Stranger is also considered by many to be the ultimate Existentialist classic. One of a number extraordinary philosophical works written in Europe during a time of world war, The Stranger depicts the social ills and absurdities of modern life amid the quest for meaning in a world whose traditional […]