social realism

…novelists were reluctant to abandon Social Realism, which they pursued in much more personal terms. In novels such as The Victim (1947), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and

…Prairies emerged the novel of social realism, which documented the small, often narrow-minded farming communities pitted against an implacable nature. Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese (1925), a tale of a strong young girl in thrall to her cruel father, and Frederick Philip Grove’s Settlers of the Marsh (1925) and

In fiction Jean-Charles Harvey attacked bourgeois ideology in Les Demi-Civilisés (1934; “The Half-Civilized”; Eng. trans. Sackcloth for Banner and Fear’s Folly), which was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, resulting in Harvey’s being fired from his job at the journal Le Soleil. Three years later Félix-Antoine…

…of the communist period, strident Socialist Realism was mandated for all the arts in Romania. By 1965 communist authorities had lifted certain restrictions, but no work that unabashedly criticized the regime was allowed; those who wished to enjoy full honours and privileges of citizenship rendered homage to the communist state…

Social realism also characterizes the largely testimonial, semiautobiographical novels of Dolores Medio, who frequently depicted working girls, schoolteachers, and aspiring writers as positive feminine role models opposing the dictatorship’s discouragement of education for women: Nosotros los Rivero (1952; “We Riveros”), El pez sigue flotando (1959;…