European Literary Highlights Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Blue Bird

Maeterlinck (1862-1949) is best known for his dramas "Pelléas et Mélisande" (1894) and "L'oiseau bleu" (1908, translated as "The Blue Bird"). But he published no less than 29 dramas, of which almost half have been set to music.
In "L'oiseau bleu", two poor children (Mytyl and her brother Tyttyl) admire the delicacies a rich family provides for Christmas. Mytyl complains that the rich don't share their wealth, but Tyttyl reprimands his sister, insisting they should be glad to witness other people's happiness.

"The Raven" is a poem by the American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). The American Richard Bach (born 1936) published the fable "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull", and "The Eagle Has Landed" is an action novel written by the English author Jack Higgins (born 1929).

Question by JanIQ, who has no literary aspirations at all.

Answer: Nikos Kazantzakis

Kazantzakis was born in 1883 on the island of Crete. Some of his works include "Zorba the Greek" (hence the Zorbing hint!), "Christ Recrucified", "Captain Michalis" and "The Last Temptation of Christ". The "Report to Greco" is an autobiography.

Question supplied by gme24.

Answer: Giovanni

Giovanni Boccaccio was born in Paris, France, in the year 1313 AD and died in Tuscany, Italy, in 1375. His father was a merchant and Boccaccio's early years were spent in Florence. He was sent to Naples by his father to learn commerce. He returned to Florence in 1340, having already written his first works. His first major work "Love Afflicted ("Il Filocolo") came in five books.

His best known work, "Decameron" which means "Ten Days", is about the storytelling of ten young people who have left Florence due to the plague and have found refuge in the countryside. Each story is related by one member of the group. The stories include tales of adventure, deception, unhappiness and love, all mixed with comic incidents.

Question supplied by gme24.

Answer: In a monastery in Luxembourg

Halldór Laxness was born Halldor Kiljan Gudjonsson in Reykjavík on 23 April 1902. By the age of 14, he already wrote articles for a local newspaper. By the age of 17, he started his first extended trip through the European continent where he published his first novel "Child of Nature" in 1919, strongly influenced by French and German expressionism.

During the 1920s, Laxness converted to Catholicism and went on to live in the Abbaye Saint-Maurice-et-Saint-Maur in Clervaux (Luxembourg). His religious period lasted only a couple of years: during a visit to America he became attracted to socialism. "The Book of the People", published in 1929, was a clear evidence of this change.

In 1930, Laxness returned to Iceland for good. His work changed again towards stories about Icelandic life. During this period typical heroes in his novels were a poor fisher girl, small farmers or an Icelandic folk poet. In his later years his work became more and more influenced by the Nordic saga tradition.

In 1955, Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland". Laxness passed away in 1998.
Question by Wellenbrecher

Answer: The Discovery of Heaven

God is very disappointed in mankind. Two angels are instructed to set cosmic wheels in motion in order to create a perfect boy destined to fulfill the task of bringing home the Ten Commandments. The protagonists, however, are not the angels, but some wretched human beings whose lives are being manipulated and who have to come to grips with existential questions regarding predetermination or whether we are - at least in part - masters of our own destiny.

Beautifully written, this is without question one of the masterpieces of Dutch literature. However, the intricacy of the plot and the ostentation of knowledge by Harry Mulisch is not everyone's cup of tea. Mulisch (1927-2010) was forever rumoured to become the first Dutch Nobel Prize winner for Literature, but it wasn't to be.

The movie adaptation of "The Discovery of Heaven" is also worth checking out, if only because of the ever delightful Stephen Fry.

Question written by Debarrio, who just like Mulisch will never win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Answer: Aristophanes

Athenian citizen Aristophanes (450 BC - 388 BC) was probably the greatest comedy writer of the ancient world. He wrote at least 40 plays out of which eleven have survived, to this day, almost intact.

Some of his works, which were part of the question, are "Clouds", "Wasps", "Birds" and "Frogs". His very first work was called "The Banqueters" ("Daiteleis"), of which some fragments survive. The works of Aristophanes are a satire of life in Athens during the Peloponnesian war and give sharp criticism of people who shaped the life of the city during that time.

Question by gme24.

Answer: Catherine II the Great

Catherine II the Great (1729-1796) was the Czarina from 1762 until her death. As a typical enlightened monarch, she was quite interested in various arts. Her private collection of artworks was the start of the vast collection of the Hermitage museum. But that did not seem enough: she also wrote several fairy tales and libretti for opera. Her fairy tale about Czarevich Fevey served as the libretto for a comic opera by Vasily Pashkevich, the court composer who started work for Catherine's late husband Peter III. The opera premiered in 1786 with many more singers and actors on stage than people in the audience, and the few who saw it were overwhelmed.

Akhmatova (1889-1966) was a poetess best known for her work "Requiem" (dedicated to the victims of Stalinist oppression).
Guro (1877-1913) was a futurist painter and writer. Her poem "Finland" was published posthumously.
Khvoshchinskaya (1824-1889) wrote about social issues and the position of woman in society. Her novel "The Boarding School Girl" is available in English translation.

Question by JanIQ, who would not try to repeat the name of the author of "The Boarding School Girl". If you really want to punish yourself, you may try saying her name thrice and then disentangling your tongue.

Answer: Françoise Sagan

Raymond amused himself with young, empty-headed Elsa while Cécile experienced her first affair with the neighbour (Cyril). Then Anne arrived - a quite brainy friend of Cécile's mother. When Anne announced her engagement to Raymond, Cécile tried to break off this engagement and hoped her father would turn to Elsa again. But then tragedy struck...

Françoise Sagan (1935-2004) published "Bonjour Tristesse" when she was only 18 years old. She would add another 20 novels and several theatre plays.

Yourcenar (1903-1987) was a Belgian novelist, member of the Académie Française, and best known for "Memoires de Hadrien" ("Hadrian's Memories") and "L'oeuvre au noir" ("The Abyss").
De Beauvoir (1908-1986) left us "Le deuxième sexe" ("The Second Sex").
Pauline Réage (1907-1998) was known for the erotic novel "Histoire d'O" ("Story of O").

Question by JanIQ, who insisted on the inclusion of some female French authors.

Answer: Camilo José Cela

Camilo José María Manuel Juan Ramón Francisco Javier de Jerónimo Cela y Trulock, Marquess of Iria Flavia (1916-2002) had an eventful early life, which included a long stay in a sanatorium due to tuberculosis, rebellious behavior leading to him being kicked out of two secondary schools and a study in medicine cut short by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Cela volunteered to fight with the "Bando Nacional", the fascist faction of Generalísimo Francisco Franco, but denounced Franco's politics after the war. Cela's first novel "La familia de Pascual Duarte" (The Family of Pascal Duarte, 1942) caused quite a stir and remains very influential as the foundation of "tremendismo", a literary style characterized by extreme realism, marginalized protagonists and raw dialogues. For some time the book was banned in Spain. Cela was more and more convinced that an author should be completely free from norms and convention. He became an influential figure in the scene of dissident writers and was editor for a literary magazine considered to be anti-Francoist. Cela was installed as a senator in the first democratic Senate after the regime change in 1975 and granted a hereditary title of Marquess by King Juan Carlos.

To the surprise of many, in 2004, two years after his death, it was revealed that Cela had actually worked for the Franco regime as a censor and an informant, disclosing which writers were communist and who could be 'recovered' for the regime by bribes or simply by helping them in getting published.

The other answers are all Nobel Prize winners, who write in Spanish, but are not actually Spanish. Vargas LLosa is Peruvian, Paz is Mexican and García Marquéz is Colombian.

Question by Debarrio who once foolishly accepted the challenge of reading "Cien Años de Soledad" in Spanish.

Answer: Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory was born in 1954 in Nairobi, Kenya, to English parents and moved to England when she was two years old. She studied History and earned a doctorate in Literature.

Most of her novels are set during the Tudor period and one of her best-known novels is "The Other Boleyn Girl" about Mary and Anne Boleyn, who married Henry VIII. "The White Queen" is loosely based on the life of Elizabeth Woodville, the queen of Edward IV, "The Red Queen", based on Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, and "The Kingmaker's Daughters", about Isabelle and Anne Neville, who was the wife of Richard III.

The three other options are American detective fiction writers.

Question by gme24.