"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is a short novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, published in Russian in 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine "Novy Mir" and published in book form the following year. Solzhenitsyn's first literary work is a treatment of his experiences in the Stalinist labor camps and established his reputation while foreshadowing his masterpiece, "The Gulag Archipelago" (1973-75).
2. Saul Bellow (1976)
Answer: Humboldt's Gift
"Humboldt's Gift", a novel by Saul Bellow, was published in 1975. The novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1976, is a self-described "comic book about death" whose title character is modeled on the self-destructive lyric poet Delmore Schwartz.
3. Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)
Answer: A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories
Isaac Bashevis Singer was an author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement. His book "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" won the National Book Award in 1974. Singer is a unique writer whose characters in this multi-storied book are varied and typically intend to do right but often find themselves unable to understand and decipher the world around them.
4. John Steinbeck (1962)
Answer: The Grapes of Wrath
"The Grapes of Wrath", the best-known novel by John Steinbeck, was published in 1939. It evokes the harshness of the Great Depression and arouses sympathy for the struggles of migrant farmworkers.
5. Ernest Hemingway (1954)
Answer: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Published in 1940, the novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is set near Segovia, Spain, in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The author's best-selling work, it tells of American teacher Robert Jordan's experiences with a band of anti-fascist Republican (Loyalist) guerrillas and his love affair with a young Spanish woman named Maria.
6. William Faulkner (1949)
Answer: The Sound and the Fury
"The Sound and the Fury" is a novel by William Faulkner, published in 1929, that details the destruction and downfall of the aristocratic Compson family from four different points of view. Faulkner's fourth novel, "The Sound and the Fury" is notable for its non-linear plot structure and its unconventional narrative style.
7. T. S. Eliot (1948)
Answer: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
T. S. Eliot's playful cat poems have delighted readers and cat lovers around the world ever since they were first published in 1939. They were originally composed for his godchildren, with Eliot posing as Old Possum himself, and later inspired the legendary musical "Cats".
8. Pearl S. Buck (1938)
Answer: The Good Earth
"The Good Earth" is a novel by Pearl Buck, published in 1931. The novel, about peasant life in China in the 1920s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. "The Good Earth" follows the life of Wang Lung from his beginnings as an impoverished peasant to his eventual position as a prosperous landowner.
9. Eugene O'Neill (1936)
Answer: The Iceman Cometh
"The Iceman Cometh", a tragedy in four acts by Eugene O'Neill, which was written in 1939 and produced and published in 1946, is considered by many to be his finest work. The drama exposes the human need for illusion and hope as antidotes to the natural condition of despair.
10. Sinclair Lewis (1930)
Answer: Main Street
"Main Street", a novel by Sinclair Lewis, was published in 1920. The story of "Main Street" is filtered through the eyes of Carol Kennicott, a young woman married to a Midwestern doctor who settles in the Minnesota town of Gopher Prairie (modeled on Lewis's hometown of Sauk Centre).
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
