|Generate QR code
Open Access
Subscription Access
Young adult literature as a mirror of the society
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2020-1-159-175
Abstract
The article discusses contemporary young adult and post-adolescent literatures, which respond to the modern world with its catastrophes and challenges in a more acute manner than fiction for adults. A new literary genre, the problem young adult novel needs a comprehensive literary analysis. The age bracket of the genre, which is still open for discussion, is examined by the author in detail. While young adult fiction has a different agenda from children’s literature, it often surpasses ‘grown-up’ books in terms of issues raised and their relevance, which is especially true for the problem young adult novel, typically centred on a specific problem of modern society and featuring a teenage protagonist fighting for his/her survival. The main themes of the genre include deadly diseases, trauma, adaptation of special children in the society, suicide, abuse, murder, drugs, terrorism, and others. Little discussed and often tabooed in class or at home, these topics are raised by young adult literature, while teenagers get a chance to examine them and relive their anxieties with protagonists.
About the Author
N. S. Zelezinskaya
Belarusian State University
Belarus
Belarus
Candidate of Philology
4 Nezavisimosti Av., Minsk, 220030
References
1. Aggraini, T. E. (2015). The characteristics of child-to-adult crossover literature: Dissertation. Ohio: The Ohio State University.
2. Arzamastseva, I. and Nikolaeva, S. (2005). Children’s literature: A textbook for higher school students. Moscow: Akademiya. (In Russ.)
3. Chernyak, M. (2011). Children and childhood as a sociocultural phenomenon: Reading the latest 21st-c. prose. In: M. Balina, V. Bezrogova, S. Maslinsky et al., eds., Inventing childhood: Philology, history, anthropology. Moscow, St. Petersburg: Azimut, Nestor-Istoriya, pp. 49-62. (In Russ.)
4. Furedi, F. (2018). How fear works: Culture of fear in the 21st century. Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Continuum.
5. Litvinova, M. (2006). Review of ‘Children’s Literature: A Textbook for Higher School Students’, by I. Arzamastseva and S. Nikolaeva. Filologicheskiy Klass, 16, pp. 84-85. (In Russ.)
6. Pasternak, E. and Zhvalevsky, A. (2012). Belarusian writers Evgenia Pasternak and Andrey Zhvalevsky: ‘We are still going through adolescence.’ Komsomolskaya Pravda, [online] 12 Apr. Available at: https://www.kp.by/ daily/25867.4/2832398/ [Accessed 20 June 2019]. (In Russ.)
7. Rogachevskaya, M. (2019). The magic light of children’s literature. In: L. Rozboudová, ed., Children’s books in the context of the world culture. Prague: Karolinum; Charles University – Faculty of Education, pp. 116-140. (In Russ.)
8. Savage, J. (2007). Teenage: The creation of youth culture 1845−1945. New York: Viking Adult. Savitskaya, O. (2015).
9. Zhvalevsky and Pasternak have discovered a new niche in literature. Sputnik, [online] 26 June. Available at: https://sputnik. by/culture/20150626/1015916845/zhvalevskij-i-pasternak.html [Accessed 10 June 2018]. (In Russ.)
10. Voloshin, M. (1989). The revelations of children’s games. In: V. Kupchenko and Z. Davydov, eds., The collected verse and poems of M. Voloshin. Prose. Li terary criticism. Diaries. Moscow: Moskovkiy rabochiy, pp. 122-131. (In Russ.)
Review
For citations:
Zelezinskaya N.S. Young adult literature as a mirror of the society. Voprosy literatury. 2020;1(1):159-175. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2020-1-159-175
Views:
1080
Email this article 
