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Ohio, and her Mohawk father was a chief of the Six
Nations Reserve. Johnson had two older brothers
and a sister. She was influenced at early age by such
canonical writers as John Milton (1608–74) and
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) but was also exposed
to native stories by her father and grandfather. This
combination of influences had a great impact on
her development as a writer.
When Johnson’s father died, the family moved
to Brantford, Ontario, where Johnson began to
write poems and short stories. She published these
stories in local newspapers to make money. In ad-
dition, Johnson became famous for her poetry
recitals, her gift for performing poetry, a legacy of
the storytelling she learned from her father and
grandfather. She toured Canada and the United
States and also traveled abroad, performing her
work and often sharing the bill with famous musi-
cians or comedians.
Johnson’s popular books of poetry include The
White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903),
and Flint and Feather (1912). In all her work, John-
son celebrates her native heritage:“My aim, my joy,
my pride is to sing the glories of my own people.”
In 1911, Johnson published Legends of Vancouver, a
collection of stories and legends of the Squamish
people as told to her by her friend Squamish chief
Joe Capilano. Johnson died at the age of 52 of
breast cancer. The monument to her grave can be
found in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
Another Work by Pauline Johnson
Ruoff, LaVonne Brown, ed. The Moccasin Maker. Nor-
man: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
A Work about Pauline Johnson
Strong-Boag, Veronica Jane, and Carole Gerson. Pad-
dling Her Own Canoe: The Times and Texts of E.
Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake). To r o n t o : U n i v e r -
sity of Toronto Press, 2000.
Johnson, Uwe (1934–1984) novelist, critic
Uwe Johnson was born in Cammin, Poland, to
Erich Johnson, an administrative official of the
Nazi Party, and Erna Johnson. Johnson attended
an elite elementary school that provided intensive
training in the Nazi ideology for its students. After
the end of World War II, the Johnsons moved to
Rechnitz, Germany, to avoid the advancing Soviet
army. Johnson’s father was arrested in 1946 by So-
viet officials for participation in the Nazi regime.
The family never saw him again.
Between 1952 and 1954, Johnson studied Ger-
man language and literature at University of Ros-
tock, East Germany. Johnson joined the junior
ranks of the Free German Youth, an East German
Communist organization for high school and col-
lege students. Johnson was expelled from the uni-
versity when he refused, despite strong pressure
from the Communist officials, to make false claims
during a public speech at a Free German Youth
meeting about the Young Congregation, a move-
ment of Christian youth. Later, Johnson was al-
lowed to continue his studies at Karl Marx
University of Leipzig, where he finished his bache-
lor’s degree in 1956. He was not allowed to pursue
doctoral studies.
Johnson began his literary career translating
English works into German. He also worked for
various publishing houses in East Germany, ap-
praising the merit of proposed projects. Johnson
constantly struggled to find employment and had
several altercations with the Communist regime
of East Germany, which prevented any possibility
of a teaching career. Completely disenchanted,
Johnson moved to West Berlin in 1959.
Uwe Johnson’s work definitely has political di-
mensions; however, it is not easy to assess what
these exactly are. His work has been criticized by
the government and some writers of West Ger-
many as procommunist and has been similarly
derogated in East Germany as anticommunist: It
seems that Johnson opposed the regimes of both
countries. He saw the government of East Ger-
many as socially oppressive, dictatorial, and domi-
nated by Stalinism. At the same time, Johnson was
disgusted with the government of West Germany,
which he frequently characterized as fascist. In-
deed, the national government of West Germany
228 Johnson, Uwe
was dominated by ex-Nazis and was in many ways
as repressive as the government of East Germany.
Johnson lived in West Berlin because it was not
under the direct jurisdiction of the national gov-
ernment in Germany.
Critical Analysis
Johnson’s first novel, Mutmassungen über Jakob
(Speculations about Jacob, 1959), was an instant
success when it appeared in West Germany. The
plot of the novel centers on Rohlfs, a member of
the East German Security Force, who enters the life
of the Cresspahl family. Heinrich Cresspahl’s
daughter, Gesine, left for West Germany and works
for NATO. Throughout the novel, Rohlfs attempts to
influence the family to recruit Gesine as a spy for
East Germany. By no means a one-sided perspec-
tive, the novel discusses the personal and political
challenges brought about by the division of Ger-
many. The novel also gained popularity in East
Germany and was not censored by government of-
ficials.
Das dritte Buch über Achim (The Third Book
about Achim, 1961) tells the story of Karsch, a West
German journalist who travels to East Germany to
visit his ex-lover Karin, a successful actress. While
in East Germany, Karsch meets Achim, Karin’s
boyfriend, a professional biker and a star in East
Germany. Karsch faces a difficult decision when a
publishing company approaches him to write
Achim’s life story in a way that would glorify so-
cialist life in East Germany. Once again, the book
does not provide a clear political message and
seems to present an objective reflection of a di-
vided Germany. The work was hailed as an
achievement in contemporary German literature
and especially was praised by Günter
GRASS,an-
other controversial and famous German writer.
Uwe Johnson lived for a time in the United
States and finally settled in the United Kingdom.
He found the environments of both Germanys sti-
fling and not conducive to his work. He continued
to write novels and received numerous awards, in-
cluding the Fontane Prize in 1960, the Wilhelm
Raabe Prize in 1975, the Georg Büchner Prize in
1971, and the Thomas Mann Prize in 1978. John-
son was a member of the Academy of Arts in West
Berlin and of the German Academy for Language
and Literature. After the reunification of Germany
in 1990, interest in Johnson’s work dramatically in-
creased. Gary Baker remarks,
Uwe Johnson is significant not only for his
unique literary style and linguistic creativity
but also for the thematic issues addressed in his
works. He was the first German author to treat,
in fiction, the division of Germany after the
war. He explored its psychological, political,
and cultural manifestations in a network of
characters and places unmatched in complex-
ity and authenticity.
Other Works by Uwe Johnson
Anniversaries: From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl.
Translated by Leila Vennewitz and Walter Arndt.
New York: Harcourt Brace, 2000.
A Trip to Klagenfurt: In the Footsteps of Ingeborg Bach-
mann. Translated by Damion Searls. New York:
Hydra Books, 2002.
A Work about Uwe Johnson
Baker, Gary. Understanding Uwe Johnson. Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
Jünger, Ernst (1895–1998) novelist, essayist
Ernst Jünger was born in Heidelberg, Germany,
and grew up in Hannover. The son of a pharma-
cist, he ran away from home in 1913 to look for
more exciting possibilities in life. Joining the
French Foreign Legion and serving in North
Africa, he joined the German army at the outbreak
of World War I and served as an officer on the
Western front. Between 1919 and 1923, Jünger
continued his military career and served as an offi-
cer in the Weimar Republic army. After retirement,
he studied entomology at Leipzig, Germany, and
Naples, Italy. He eventually became a famous ento-
mologist (several insects were named after him).
Jünger, Ernst 229
During the 1920s, Jünger joined the pro-Nazi
movement and contributed to several right-wing
publications. His first book, The Storm of Steel
(1920), argued that Germany’s suffering during
World War I was a prelude to a rebirth of a power-
ful nation and great victory ahead. In Adventurous
Heart (1929) and The Workers (1933), Jünger ex-
amined the social and emotional structure of the
worker. In these works, Jünger rejects humanism
and claims that struggle for power among world
nations is imminent. Although Jünger supported
the right-wing movement, he rejected offers of
friendship from Adolf Hitler during the 1920s, re-
fused to serve as the head of the Nazi Writers’
Union in 1933, and vocally opposed anti-Semi-
tism. For these reasons, the Nazi government pro-
hibited further publication of his work in 1938.
During World War II, Jünger served as a captain
in the German army. Stationed in Paris, he associ-
ated with several artists, including the famous
painter Pablo Picasso. After the death of his son at
the Italian front, he became completely disen-
chanted with war.
After the war, Jünger published a number of
works in which he supported European unity and
promoted the rights of the individual. In The Glass
Bees (1957), for example, he paints a world in
which machines threaten the rights of individuals.
In his books, Jünger often dispassionately painted
historical and social developments that resulted in
violation of human rights; hence, he was some-
times accused of indifference and elitism. Despite
criticism, he achieved a reputation as a great Ger-
man writer.
He was awarded numerous prizes, including the
Great Order of Merit (1959), the Immermann
Prize (1964), and the Goethe Prize (1982), as well
as an honorary degree from the University of Bil-
bao, among others. By the time of his death at the
age of 103, Jünger had published more than 20
books. His works have been translated into more
than a dozen languages.
Other Works by Ernst Jünger
Aladdin’s Problem. Translated by Joachim Neu-
groschel. New York: Marsilio, 1992.
A Dangerous Encounter. Translated by Hilary Barr.
New York: Marsilio, 1993.
A Work about Ernst Jünger
Nevin, Thomas. Ernst Jünger and Germany: Into the
Abyss, 1914–1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 1997.
230 Jünger, Ernst
231
K
Kabbani, Nizar (Qabbani) (1923–1998)
poet, essayist
Born in Damascus, Syria, to a respected middle-
class Muslim family, Kabbani published his first
volume of poetry in 1944. He immediately gained
fame for his bad-boy erotic daring and his “hip”
language that expressed Arabic youth culture. Kab-
bani’s poetry often incites rebellion against what
he saw as repressive political and social morés. In
1954, the Syrian parliament considered demoting
him from his diplomatic post for the disrespect to
religion some found in his poem,“Bread, Hashish,
and the Moon,” but the motion failed.
At the height of his literary career, from the
1950s to the 1970s, Kabbani, often writing in a fe-
male voice, expressed the joys of love and eros for
a generation of men and especially women. He saw
himself as a champion of women’s liberation and
sexual freedom.
In the 1980s, Kabbani wrote three volumes of
poetry, titled “Trilogy of the Children of the
Rocks” (1988), celebrating the teenage rebels of the
Palestinian intifadah. His poetry conveys deep
Arab pride as well as sharp criticism of many as-
pects of Arab life and culture, such as the sexual
double standard for men and women. His most
scathing poetic attacks, such as “Scribblings in the
Margins of the Notebook of Defeat,” are aimed at
repressive Arab governments that curtail the
human rights of the Arab peoples. He also wrote
strident poems against Israeli and American poli-
cies toward Arabs, such as the poem “I Am a Ter-
rorist” in which he says that Arab men are labeled
terrorists by the Western media for defending their
homes and their people’s dignity.
Kabbani graduated from the University of
Damascus with a law degree in 1945 and joined
Syria’s diplomatic corps. He was posted in Egypt,
Turkey, Britain, Lebanon, Spain, and China before
he resigned in 1966 and moved to Beirut, where
he established his own publishing company.
From a brief early marriage in Syria, he had two
children, one of whom died in a car accident as a
young man; Kabbani eulogized him in poetry.
Kabbani married again, this time to an Iraqi
schoolteacher, Balqis al-Rawi. His poem,“Choose,”
was widely considered by the Arabic reading pub-
lic to be Kabbani’s marriage proposal to Balqis.
The handsome poet—he was nicknamed “the
blond rebel”—and the beautiful woman who was
his muse captivated public attention. They had two
children. Kabbani wrote some of his finest poetry
of love and sensuality in the 1970s. The poem “I
Bear Witness That There Is No Woman But You,”
for example, provocatively turns the Muslim testi-
mony of faith in one God into a testimony of a
man’s love for one woman. When Balqis was killed
at her office in a Beirut bombing in 1981, he pub-
licly mourned her in several anguished poems.
After her death, Kabbani left the Arab world for
Europe, living in Geneva, Paris, and London,
where he settled down to a life of exile. In 1997, a
street was named after him in his old neighbor-
hood in Damascus. When he died, his body was
flown back to Damascus for burial, as he had re-
quested in his will.
Kabbani wrote more than 50 books of poetry
as well as several volumes of essays and one
drama, a political satire. During his lifetime, his
readings drew crowds in the tens of thousands.
Many Kabbani poems were adopted as song lyrics
by some of the most popular figures in Arabic
music so that his words continue to be heard
through song. In today’s pop music scene, Iraqi
icon Kazem al-Saher has acquired rights to sing
many of Kabbani’s poems. Kabbani’s work has
been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Per-
sian, and English. In 1994, he was awarded the
Oweiss Prize for Cultural Productivity in the
United Arab Emirates.
Other Works by Nizar Kabbani
Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts.
Translated by Bassam K. Frangieh and Clementina
Brown. Boulder, Colo.: Lynn Rienner, 1999.
On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of
Nizar Qubbani. Translated by Lena Jayyusi et al.
New York: Interlink, 1996.
Kafka, Franz (1883–1924) novelist, short-
story writer
Franz Kafka was born in Prague, Czech Republic,
to Hermann Kafka, a dry-goods merchant, and
Julie Kafka. Kafka’s family spoke German and be-
longed to a small but old community of German-
speaking Jews in Prague. Hermann Kafka was a
domineering, almost tyrannical figure in the Kafka
household. He took out his anger and frustration
on young Franz, who recalled the terrifying expe-
riences later in his life. Indeed, many biographers
and critics of Kafka note that Kafka’s work often
deals with a conflict between father and son or
with people pleading innocence in front of author-
ity figures. Kafka’s childhood was marked by the
constant domestic conflicts and by the social at-
mosphere of Prague that branded Jews as second-
class citizens and outcasts. Kafka’s attitude toward
his Jewish heritage was ambiguous and is an
obliquely expressed conflict in his works.
Kafka was educated in German elementary
schools. In 1901, he enrolled in Ferdinand-Karls
University to study law, graduating with a doctorate
in 1906. Kafka’s career as a writer began about 1904
when he was working as a legal clerk. At work,
Kafka composed mundane reports on industrial
health hazards and the legal implications of indus-
trial injuries; at night, however, Kafka composed
elaborate, sometimes fantastic tales. Between 1907
and 1923, Kafka worked in the insurance business
and achieved remarkable success; indeed, he was
so valued by his employers that they arranged a de-
ferment from the draft during World War I.
In 1917 Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
He continued to work but suffered a serious set-
back when he contracted influenza in 1919. Kafka
also met constant disappointment from publishers
who rejected his work. After several turbulent but
unsuccessful relationships with women, in 1922
Kafka finally married Dora Diamant, a young
woman from a respected Orthodox Jewish family
in Prague. The couple moved to Berlin, where
Kafka, by then confined to bed, worked on his
journals and wrote numerous letters to his friends
and family. By 1924, Kafka was moved to a sanato-
rium just outside of Vienna. He died of tuberculo-
sis in obscurity and poverty.
Kafka asked his friend and fellow writer Max
Brod to destroy all manuscripts after his death. For-
tunately, Brod disobeyed the last wish of his friend.
Thus, with the exception of few short stories, most
of Kafka’s major work was published posthumously.
Critical Analysis
“The Metamorphosis” (1915) is probably Kafka’s
best-known and most critically acclaimed short
232 Kafka, Franz
story. In the story, Gregor Samsa, a traveling sales-
man, awakes one day to discover himself trans-
formed into a giant grotesque insect. No longer
able to communicate with his parents or the out-
side world, Gregor physically degenerates day by
day; mentally, however, he does not seem to
change. Gregor is finally killed by his father. “The
Metamorphosis” presents a range of themes found
in the works of MODERNISM, such as alienation of
the individual, failure of communication, and at-
tachment to a landscape that has grown ungovern-
ably hostile. At the time of its publication,
however, most readers did not know how to inter-
pret the strange allegorical plot of the story. Today,
the story is often cited as central to the modernist
movement, and it reflects the ideas that the move-
ment embodied.
Kafka’s novel The Trial (1925) depicts the suf-
fering and psychological torment of Josef K., who
is arrested one morning without reason. Through-
out his “trial,” Josef never discovers the crime of
which he is accused. He is dragged through a seem-
ingly endless investigation in a court system that
reveals nothing. Josef does not confront an identi-
fiable authority figure, but he is constantly bur-
dened by laws he cannot comprehend. At the end
of the novel, Josef becomes a martyr to the law
when he is stabbed to death. Truth is no longer rel-
evant in the faceless system of law that delivers ar-
bitrary judgment and punishment. Kafka
addressed a similar theme in the short story “The
Penal Colony” (1919); here, truth becomes an in-
strument of punishment, as the victims of truth
are killed by a machine that inscribes the nature of
their crimes on their bodies.
The protagonist of Kafka’s novel, The Castle
(1926), is simply identified as K. K arrives in a
small village, claiming to be a land surveyor and
bears the official authority of the government. K
seeks to meet Klamm, the ruler of the mysterious
castle that supposedly has sovereignty over the vil-
lage. K develops a strange relationship with Arthur
and Jeremiah, Klamm’s assistants, who refuse to
arrange a meeting with their supervisor. K finally
befriends and uses Frieda, a former mistress of the
castle, who leaves K after discovering his true in-
tents. The Castle focuses on several important
themes, including bureaucracy, love, guilt, and law.
All these themes are strangely interconnected in
the landscape where the individual is incapable of
retaining a stable identity. Although Kafka never
finished The Castle, it remains as one of his most
important works.
Franz Kafka received no recognition for his in-
credible talent during his lifetime. Today, however,
Kafka is considered one of the leading figures of
modernism and of world literature in general. He
left a body of works of great complexity and liter-
ary genius, and one that continues to enrich read-
ers and critics today. Kafka was rediscovered in the
1950s and is among the most admired of modern
writers. Perhaps more than any other writer, Kafka
captures the nightmare reality and absurdity of
modern existence and the strange, alienated feel of
a world without reason.
Other Works by Franz Kafka
Amerika. Translated by Willia Muir. New York:
Schocken Books, 1996.
The Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books,
1995.
Franz Kafka: The Diaries, 1921–1923. New York:
Schocken Books, 1989.
Works about Franz Kafka
Adler, Jeremy. Franz Kafka. New York: Overlook
Press, 2002.
Brod, Max. Franz Kafka: A Biography. New York: Da
Capo Press, 1995.
Kanik, Orhan Veli (1914–1950) poet
Orhan Veli Kanik was born in Istanbul, Turkey. The
son of a conductor for the Presidential Symphony
Orchestra, he received a diverse and liberal educa-
tion but withdrew from the University of Istanbul
before completing his degree. His talent as a writer
was nurtured at a young age, and he was fortunate
to have among his mentors the leading poet, liter-
ary critic, and historian Ahmet Hamdi Tapinar.
Kanik, Orhan Veli 233
Tapinar encouraged Kanik to write, leading him to
publish his poetry in the school paper Sesimiz (Our
Voice) while Kanik was in his early teens. Kanik
served with the armed forces during World War II
and obtained a job as a translator after the war, but
he left this position to lead a bohemian life, more in
tune with his poetry and his philosophy.
Kanik was born into a family of writers and
artists. His younger brother, Adnan, was also a
writer until he was sent to prison in 1949 for a po-
litical offense. Orhan, however, was able to avoid
conflicts with the authorities and to publish Leaf,
a literary journal. The journal ran for 28 issues and
ceased publication with a special memorial edition
on Kanik’s death.
Kanik was never a prolific writer, but he had a
great influence on the development of Turkish po-
etry. His own work was more influenced by Japan-
ese haiku than by traditional Turkish or Western
forms. Kanik believed that a strict adherence to
traditional forms had made much of Turkish po-
etry sterile. He sought to reinvent tradition with a
sense of vibrancy that would resonate with the
needs of common humanity. He broke free of con-
ventional modes, discarding rhyme and meter, and
focused instead on an almost nihilistic viewpoint
that, simultaneously, managed to incorporate a
reaffirmation of the joy of life. He wrote entirely in
free verse, tackling the issues relevant to everyday
life in plain language that was devoid of metaphors
and clichés.
Although Nazim
HIKMET had earlier brought
the use of free verse to Turkish poetry, it was Kanik
who established its relevance by introducing ideas
of the French modernist movement to his poetry.
Alongside fellow poets Oktay Rifat and Melih
Cevdet Anday, he started the artistic movement
POETIC REALISM, which focuses on the emergence of
the common man as hero. By stripping away the
traditional adornments of poetry, the poet is free
to use everyday life as subject matter.
Kanik died from a cerebral hemorrhage after
collapsing in Istanbul on November 14. Many be-
lieved that his death was a result of his love of al-
cohol, citing a famous line from one of his poems,
“I wish I were a fish in a bottle of booze.” Kanik’s
death came as a shock to the people of Turkey.
After a well-attended funeral ceremony, he was
buried on a hill where he could rest forever, “Lis-
tening to Istanbul.”
Another Work by Orhan Veli Kanik
I, Orhan Veli: Poems by Orhan Veli. Translated by
Murat Nemet-Nejat. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Hanging
Loose Press, 1989.
Kao Tsing-jen
See GAO XINGJIAN.
Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich
(1766–1826) historian, short-story writer,
novelist
The birthplace of Nikolai Karamzin is uncertain,
but most research suggests a small village along the
Volga River in Russia. Karamzin’s mother died
when he was very young, and he was raised by his
father, Mikhail Karamzin, a retired army captain
and minor aristocrat. A village priest taught him to
read and write. When Karamzin was 13, his father
send him to study in Moscow. He was a brilliant
student, and attended university lectures when he
was just 16. Although he was eager to study at the
university, Karamzin’s father insisted that he pur-
sue an army career. Karamzin enlisted as an officer
in the Preobrozhentsky regiment in St. Petersburg
in 1783.
In St. Petersburg, Karamzin spent his time in
literary circles and eventually became a translator.
He published his first translation at the age of 17
and was paid with two volumes of the English nov-
elist Henry Fielding’s works. He left the army in
1784 after the death of his father. In 1789, he left
Russia and traveled across Europe, visiting Ger-
many, Switzerland, France, and England. On his
return to Russia in 1790, Karamzin established a
literary journal, Moscow Journal, in which he pub-
lished his Letters of the Russian Traveler (1792), a
collection that was based on his travels in Europe,
234 Kao Tsing-jen
and “Poor Liza” (1792), a short novel about a peas-
ant girl. Several other stories that Karamzin wrote
at this time brought French sentimentalism to
Russia and were widely imitated.
Karamzin was not particularly interested in
politics, but when he established a new journal in
1801, Vestnik Evropy (The Messenger of Europe), it
became the leading political journal in Russia. It
was the most widely read publication in Russia
during the early 1800s. The journal’s popularity
brought financial success, which freed Karamzin to
begin his enormous historiographic work, History
of the Russian State (1819–29). This 12-volume
work, which covered Russian history up to 1613,
was the most complete history of Russia of the
time. The Russian emperor, Aleksandr I, appointed
Karamzin official historiographer in 1803 with a
pension of 2,000 rubles a year, a considerable sum.
Between 1810 and 1811, Karamzin worked on
Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (1811). In
this work, Karamzin related his political beliefs, as
well as his personal conversations with Aleksandr
I. He believed that autocracy was the appropriate
form of government for Russia, making a careful
distinction between autocracy and despotism,
based on the importance of the law.
Karamzin left a long-lasting legacy when he
died in 1826. He had become one of the closest
friends of the emperor and remained a defender
of the monarchy. More important, Karamzin’s
work influenced such important writers as Alek-
sandr
PUSHKIN and Mikhail LERMONTOV. He also es-
tablished a historiographic tradition that did not
previously exist in Russia, and his account of Russ-
ian history was an important part of the Russian
self-image into the 20th century.
Works about Nikolai Karamzin
Black, Joseph Lawrence. Nicholas Karamzin and Russ-
ian Society in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in
Russian Political and Historical Thought. To r o n t o :
University of Toronto Press, 1976.
Hammarberg, Gitta. From the Idyll to the Novel:
Karamzin’s Sentimentalist Prose. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991.
Lewis, S. Mark. Modes of Historical Discourse in J. G.
Herder and N. M. Karamzin. New York: Peter
Lange, 1995.
Karnad, Girish (1938– ) playwright
Girish Ranghunath Karnad was born in Maha-
rashtra, India, but has lived most of his life in the
southern state of Karnataka. Most of Karnad’s
work is written in Kannada, the language spoken
in Karnataka, but he has translated all his major
plays into English. He is a playwright, story writer,
poet, and director of films.
After completing his college studies in math
and statistics in 1958 at Karnataka University, Kar-
nad went to Oxford University to earn a master’s
degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. It is
here that Karnad first started to explore his artistic
talents and began writing poetry.
When Karnad returned to India, he started to
work at Oxford University Press in 1963. After the
success of his second play Tughlaq (1964), he de-
cided to quit the press and has since devoted his
life to writing drama. At one point (1974–75), he
was the director of the Film Institute of Pune,
India.
Karnad has written 10 plays, all of which are ex-
tremely politically driven but read like folktales.
His very first play Yaya ti (1961), written while
studying at Oxford, is taken from a story in the
great Hindu epic The Mahabharata. It recounts the
events that follow a son’s attempt to rescue his fa-
ther from a curse, thus throwing the entire family
into a moral dilemma. There is a strong sense of
the past in Karnad’s work, and he borrows exten-
sively from Indian mythology and history. His play
Tughlaq, for instance, shows the transformation of
the old Mughal emperor (Mohammad bin Tugh-
laq) from a sensitive ruler into an unjust oppressor.
His folktale Cheluvi (1992), which was also made
into a movie, is about a girl who turns into a tree,
thus becoming a symbolic vehicle of nature’s out-
cry against humanity’s inconsiderate actions.
Karnad’s plays have always carried social mes-
sages. At a time when most of his peers were
Karnad, Girish 235
switching to the more-lucrative film industry, Kar-
nad steadfastly stuck to writing about social re-
form for the theater. In 1994, he won the Sahitya
Akademi Award for his social drama, Taledanda
(1990), and the Jnanpith Award in 1999 for his
contribution to modern Indian drama.
Another Work by Girish Karnad
Three Plays: Naga-Mandala; Hayavadana; Tughlaq.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
A Work about Girish Karnad
Dodiya, Jaydipsinh. The Plays of Girish Karnad: Crit-
ical Perspectives. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999.
Kaschnitz, Marie Luise (pseudonym of
Freifrau Marie Luise von Kaschnitz-
Weinberg)
(1901–1974) poet, short-story
writer
Marie Luise Kaschnitz was born in Karlsruhe, Ger-
many. Her parents were Max Freiherr von Holz-
ing-Berstett, a general and nobleman, and Elsa von
Seldenek. Kaschnitz grew up in Berlin and Pots-
dam. She trained to be a book dealer and later
worked at a publishing house in Munich. In 1925,
she married Guido von Kaschnitz-Weinberg, an
archaeology professor. They traveled extensively
and lived for several years in Rome.
Although best known as a poet, Kaschnitz’s first
work was a novel, Liebe beginnt (Love Begins, 1933).
After World War II, she emerged as a lyric poet with
her first collection Gedichte (Poems, 1947). Starting
in the 1950s, she also published short-story collec-
tions and radio plays based on biblical legends.
After Kaschnitz’s husband died, she wrote Wohin
denn ich (Where Do I Go Now? 1963), a moving col-
lection of poems inspired by her loss.
A central theme in Kaschnitz’s writings is the
search for self. She often describes the plight of the
individual in an impersonal, alien world. Influ-
enced by her Christian faith and World War II, she
frequently dealt with the issues of guilt and death.
She used traditional forms but also experimented,
developing her own unique style. Kaschnitz
received the guest chair for poetry at the University
of Frankfurt and won numerous awards, including
the prestigious Georg Büchner Prize.
Other Works by Marie Luise Kaschnitz
Circe’s Mountain: Stories by Marie Luise Kaschnitz.
Translated by Lisel Mueller. Minneapolis: Milk-
weed Editions, 1990.
Selected Later Poems of Marie Luise Kaschnitz. Trans-
lated by Lisel Mueller. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1980.
A Work about Marie Luise Kaschnitz
Pulver, Elsbeth. Marie Luise Kaschnitz. Munich: C. H.
Beck, 1984.
Kauraka Kauraka (1951–1999) poet
Kauraka Kauraka was born in the village of Avatiu,
Rarotonga, the Cook Islands. Kauraka’s poetry re-
flects the interesting cultural roots of his heritage.
His mother was a descendant of the Manihiki, and
his father was part Manihiki, Mangaian, and Chi-
nese. Kauraka went to New Zealand for his high
school and college education and later went to
Japan as a professional singer and musician for the
Betela Dance Troupe. Kauraka graduated from the
University of the South Pacific in Fiji in 1980 and
became the language curriculum adviser to the Ed-
ucation Department in Rarotonga. He received his
M.A. degree from the Anthropology Department
in the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1987. He
became a full-time writer retelling, translating, and
writing stories of the Pacific Islands. Kauraka
founded Sunblossom Press in the Cook Islands
and devoted his life to writing about the richness
of Polynesian cultural tradition.
Kauraka’s poetry reflects the ancient beliefs and
traditions of his rich heritage. The images and
metaphors in his poems are essentially Polynesian
in nature. His talent for music shows distinctly in
his poetry, which has a sing-song quality. Nature
imagery (such as gardenias and coconut trees) and
animal symbols (such as snakes, dolphins, and
birds) constitute important elements of his poems.
236 Kaschnitz, Marie Luise
In “Return to Havaiki” (1985), Kauraka uses the
images of the ngoio (black noddy tern) and “great
sky mushrooms” to reflect the natural richness of
his Polynesian home, Manihiki.
Kauraka’s experiences while traveling also give
his poetry a unique blend of cross-cultural ele-
ments that reveal his desire to share cultural com-
plexities, especially those of Polynesia. He often
questions the abandoning of traditional culture to
embrace unquestionably the cultural practices of
modern Western society. In “Darkness within the
Light” (1985), Kauraka beseeches the New Zealan-
der of indigenous descent not to forsake his tradi-
tional roots. In another poem, “Children of
Manuhiki, Arise” (1985), he laments the powerful
influence of modernity on the younger generation
of Polynesians who no longer heeds the oral tradi-
tions of their ancestors.
Kauraka’s poems also bespeak the need to use
the past to understand the future.All of these char-
acteristics can be seen in the poems in Kauraka’s
collection, Dreams of a Rainbow (1987), which he
wrote when he was still a graduate student in
Hawaii. His respect for the traditional past was
most aptly described in “Po, The Great”and “Three
Warriors.” In “Po, The Great”, he celebrates the
power of Po, the parent of all mythical gods of the
Pacific Islands; in “Three Warriors,” he personifies
the three virtues of Polynesian heroes.
Kauraka’s most important contribution lies in
his ability to create a dialogue between different
groups of people. Through poetry, he establishes a
platform on which the older and more traditional
generation interacts with the younger, modern
one. His poetry leads to a better understanding of
world culture and interaction between not only
two different cultures but also two generations
within a culture.
Other Works by Kauraka Kauraka
Manakonako = reflections. Auckland: Mana Publica-
tions, 1991.
Manihikian traditional narratives = Na fakahiti o
Manihikian. New Zealand: Te Ropu Kahurangi,
1988.
Taku Akatauira = My dawning star: poems. Suva, Fiji:
Mana Publications, 1999.
A Work about Kauraka Kauraka
Simpson, Michael, and John Untfrecker. Dreams of
the Rainbow: Poems by Kauraka Kauraka. Hon-
olulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa, East–West
Center, 1986.
Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972) novelist
and short-story writer
Kawabata Yasunari was born to Kawabata Eikichi
and Gen in Osaka. When he was young, his father,
mother, grandmother and sister died, leaving him
in the care of his nearly blind and terminally ill
grandfather. In 1915, having also lost his grandfa-
ther, Kawabata moved to a middle-school dormi-
tory, and then, having determined to become a
writer, he studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Im-
perial University. In the 1930s, Kawabata became
actively involved in the literary community, sup-
porting young writers, working for magazines, and
becoming a member of the censorious Literary
Discussion Group, organized by the government as
Japan entered World War II. Kawabata went into
semiretirement in the late 1960s. In 1972, he was
found dead, an apparent suicide, in his seaside
apartment.
In 1921, Kawabata published his first story, “A
View of the Yasukuni Festival,” which garnered the
attention of influential writer Kan Kikuchi
(1888–1948). Even with his support, however,
Kawabata’s early stories were largely unsuccessful,
perhaps due to their experimental style. In 1926,
however, he published a novella written with more
traditional literary idioms. The success of The Izu
Dancer, about a walking tour of the Izu Peninsula
near Tokyo, established Kawabata as a writer. A dis-
tinctive feature of his novels is the theme of unre-
quited longing. In Snow Country (1947), the
protagonist Shimamura engages in an unfulfilling
love affair with a geisha while secretly longing for a
woman involved with another man. In 1950,
Kawabata published one of his best works, Sound
Kawabata Yasunari 237