2 books by Stephen Becker
Requirements: ePUB Reader, 1.06 mb
Overview: Stephen Becker (1927–1999) was an American author, translator, and teacher whose published works include eleven novels and the English translations of many works, including Elie Wiesel’s The Town Behind the Wall and The Forgotten and André Malraux’s The Conquerors. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York in 1927, and after serving in World War II, he graduated from Harvard University and studied in Peking and Paris, where he was friends with the novelist Richard Wright and learned French in part by reading detective novels. The recipient of Paul Harris and Guggenheim Fellowships and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Becker taught at numerous schools throughout the United States, including the University of Iowa, Bennington College, and the University of Central Florida in Orlando. His best-known works include A Covenant with Death (1965), which was adapted into a Warner Brothers film starring Gene Hackman and George Maharis; When the War Is Over (1969), a Civil War novel based on the true story of a teenage Confederate soldier executed more than a month after Lee’s surrender; and the Far East trilogy of literary adventure novels: The Chinese Bandit (1975), The Last Mandarin (1979), and The Blue-Eyed Shan (1982).
Genre: Historical Fiction , Mystery
The Outcasts: A Novel
An American engineer journeys to the tropics to build a bridge and reclaim his manhood in this brilliant tragicomedy written during the height of the Cold War
Fleeing two bad marriages and the sneaking suspicion that failure is his destiny, Bernard Morrison boards a flight bound for a freshly liberated country in desperate need of infrastructure. When the plane finally touches down, the pilot has happy news: The airport and the capital are not under attack. So far, so good, thinks Morrison as he heads for the jungle.
The bridge he has been sent to build may be in the middle of nowhere, but the work requires discipline and fortitude—qualities long missing from Morrison’s routine—and his interactions with the native laborers and their bosses are refreshingly out of the ordinary. When he discovers a primitive tribe living near the construction site, Morrison revels in their freedom and lack of inhibition. He vows to protect the innocent tribespeople, not realizing that it’s too late—the bridge to the future has already been built.
Part farce, part tragedy, The Outcasts is a powerful morality tale in the tradition of Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene.
The Season of the Stranger: A Novel
Three civilians fight to survive China’s communist revolution in the suspenseful debut novel from the acclaimed author of The Chinese Bandit
China, 1948. As the Red Army marches south from Manchuria, the rest of the country awaits the defeat of the Nationalist regime with a paralyzing mixture of hope and fear.
Andrew Girard, an American professor at a Chinese university, believes that the future holds the promise of a fairer, more peaceful China. His mistress, Li-ling, shares his optimism but is caught between the love she feels for her former teacher and the loyalty she owes her father, a powerful and corrupt profiteer. Wen-li, Girard’s pragmatic young servant, knows that in the violent chaos of revolution, the brave and idealistic often pay the highest price.
Told from the shifting points of view of its three main characters, The Season of the Stranger masterfully evokes the tense atmosphere of a nation on the cusp of profound change. Based on author Stephen Becker’s experiences as a teacher and student in pre-Communist China and published when he was just twenty-four years old, this unforgettable story of love, violence, courage, and tragedy, brings an exotic lost world to thrilling life.
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