Katherine Mansfield is probably the most famous writer from New Zealand. Her short stories are full of spiritual power and feminine life perception. All her literary works are remarkable by a special psychological analysis of the character. Modern critics consider Mansfield to be a very sincere author, who writes from her personal inner world instead of simply copying the general reality.
Added by: englishcology | Karma: 4552.53 | Fiction literature | 10 September 2008
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The Moon and Sixpence (1919) is a short novel by William Somerset Maugham based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged English stock broker who abandons his wife and children abruptly in order to pursue his desire to become an artist
It seems unthinkable that Charles Strickland, the dull, bourgeois city gent, would have the tortured soul of a genius. Yet Strickland is driven to abandon his home，wife，and children to devote himself slavishly to painting. In a tiny studio in Paris he fills canvas after canvas，refusing to sell or even exhibit his work. Beset by poverty，sickness，and his own intransigent nature，he drifts to Tahiti，where，even after being blinded by leprosy，he produces some of his most extraordinary works of art. First published in 1919 and inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin，The Moon and Sixpence is a study of a man possessed by the need to create - regardless of the cost to himself or others.
