About This Blog

In the words of the great author, George R.R Martin, “I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.” In this same way, readers are invited to live through the eyes of the characters in books. Reading and analyzing multicultural literature is one way that teachers can give their students the gift of living multiple and varying lives. Literature is one art form that has the power to submerge readers into different lives, times, and places around the world and transform them into different people when they are done.


Global literature blurs the lines of national identities and are texts that all readers can find a something to relate to or a common ground. The blurring of national boundaries is more represented in 20th-century literature because people were starting to leave their homes to start new lives in places all around the globe. Now, there is almost no place in the world where there is no diversity, whether it be a diversity of races, ethnicities, religious affiliations, or differing cultures. Literature represents the changing world around us. The blurring of national boundaries is very prominent in 20th-century literature which means that the same was going on in the world as well. Literature mirrors what is happening in society and 20th-century literature portrays struggles with cultural identity by doing just that. Given that our national boundaries are blurred and the world is figuratively like a melting pot, it may be difficult to find one’s cultural identity. In the 20th-century, who you are was starting to stray from where you lived. One’s cultural identity no longer relies on where you were born geographically. We are now given the opportunity to create our identities and mold the world around us to fit us in and that is the meaning of blurring national boundaries.


This blog will introduce you to texts from around the world that all share the common theme of connectedness. Blog one focuses on an overview of multicultural literature with the following readings: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, “The Guest” by Albert Camus, “Requiem” by Anna Ahkmatova, and “Faust” by Goethe. Blog two is about Ancient Eastern literature with the following texts: “Early Chinese Literature and Thought”, “Classics of Poetry”, “Confucius”, “Du Fu”, and “Yuan Zhen, the Story of Yingying”. Blog three’s topic is Contemporary Eastern literature with the following works: “Diary of a Madman” by Lu Xun, “Sealed Off” by Zhang Ailing, and “Man of La Mancha” by Chu T’len-Hsin. Blog four’s topic is Native American literature with the selected readings: “The Conquest of Mexico” from Book 12 in the Florentine Codex, “The Night Chant (Orature Section” from Navajo Ceremony, and “Yellow Woman” by Leslie Marmon Silko. Blog 5 is about African and African American literature with the following texts: “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin, “Chike’s School Days” by Chinua Achebe, “The Deep River” by Bessie Head, and Leopold Sedar Senghor’s poems “To New York”, “Night in Sine”, “Prayer to Masks”, and “Letter to a Poet”. Blog six focuses on Realism and Magical Realism in Latin American literature with the following readings: “I Speak of the City” and “Central Park” by Octavio Paz, “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges, “Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda, “Death Constant Beyond Love” by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Isabel Allende’s “And of Clay Are We Created”. Blog seven’s topic is Post-Holocaust Jewish literature with the following readings: “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Taduesz Borowski, Paul Celan’s poems “Deathfugue, “Aspen Tree”, and “Shibboleth”, “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman” by Clarice Lispector, and Yehuda Amichai’s poems “God has Pity on Kindergarten Children”, “Tourists”, “Jerusalem”, and “An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion”. The last blog is a culmination of the overall theme of connectedness with the following texts: “The Perforated Sheet” by Salman Rushdie, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, “Wedding at the Cross” by Ngugi Wa Thioing’o, and Book One of “Omeros” by Derek Walcott.

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Ancient Eastern Literature

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The common theme that is emphasized in this selection of readings is change and growth. Change and growth were exhibited in the “Classics of Poetry” in each poem as they changed from the first stanza to the last in an almost anecdotal manner.  Zhang showed growth in Yuan Zhen’s “Story of Yingying” when he chose to move on from Yingying and her manipulative and childish ways. In Confucius’ Book One from his “Analects” the Master said, “Not to be upset when one’s merits are ignored: is this not the mark of gentleman?” Zhang chose to be a gentleman as described in Confucius’ “Analects” when he responded to Yingying’s poem at the end of the story by saying that the past cannot be fixed and that Yingying should focus on being happy with her husband. Teaching the topic of growth to high school students may be difficult because of how abstract the concept is. That being said, teachers could ask students to write down everything about themselves when they were thirteen (or any other age).
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African and African American Literature

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The theme that is prominent in this week’s readings of African and African American literature is identity. Chinua Achebe’s “Chike’s School Days” and Bessie Head’s “The Deep River” portray to readers the significance of names and how identity and deeper meanings are conveyed through them. Senghor’s poems and James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” express to readers the internal battles of African Americans who felt confused on what their identities were. The topic of African and African American literature can be taught through the theme of identity and identity confusion. This week’s readings expressed feelings of confusion, anger, and excitement that were directly tied to the character’s search for their identities. White missionaries who came to Africa during the time that the stories, “Chike’s School Days” and “The Deep River”, were written in created a cultural divide amongst the African people. Some were excited to learn about the English customs and cult
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