Mastermind Club
Quiz 2022
Number 1
Literature
Set by Mel Kinsey
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For the answer
1/ Ranging from 20 to 28 years of age at its beginning, Olga, Maria and Irina are the title characters of a 1900 play by which notable playwright?
Anton Chekhov (‘Three Sisters’)
2/ Written by the British writer Sophie Hannah, ‘The Monogram Murders’ (2014) was the first in a series of novels to feature which fictional detective? The character had died in the novel ‘Curtain’, published in 1975.
Hercule Poirot
3/ Published in 2005, what is the title of the first ‘the Percy Jackson & the Olympians’ series by Rick Riordan? It was followed by ‘The Sea of Monsters’ and ‘The Titan’s Curse’.
‘The Lightning Thief’
4/ ‘Lust for Life’ (based on Vincent Van Gogh), ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ (Michelangelo) and ‘Depths of Glory’ (Camille Pissarro) were biographical novels of great artists by which American writer born in 1903?
Irving Stone
5/ Noted for drawing from a variety of fields (eg anthropology, geography and evolutionary biology), which US writer is best known for his popular science books ‘The Third Chimpanzee’ (1991); ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’ (1997) and ‘Collapse’ (2005)?
Jared Diamond
6/ Held in 2010 by public vote, the Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize to a novel from 1970 as the books published in that year were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration. The winner was ‘Troubles’ - the first installment of the ‘Empire trilogy’ by which writer who tragically drowned in 1979 at the age of 44?
J G Farrell
7/ Published in 2004 (a year after his death from liver failure), ‘2666’ is the last work of which Chilean novelist and poet? It has a lot of similarities with his 1998 award-winning novel ‘The Savage Detectives’.
Roberto Bolano
8/ Born 1923 in New York City, which playwright and screenwriter is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays : for ‘Marty’ (1955), ‘The Hospital’ (1971) and ‘Network’ (1976)? His stage plays include ‘Middle of the Night’ (1956) and ‘The Tenth Man’ (1959).
Paddy Chayefsky
9/ Subtitled ‘History as a Novel/The Novel as History’, which Pulitzer Prize-winning work is a nonfiction novel recounting the October 1967 March on the Pentagon in opposition to the Vietnam War?
‘The Armies of the Night’ by Norman Mailer
10/ The first book in a trilogy that continues with ‘Songs of Enchantment’, which 1991 Man Booker winner is narrated by Azaro, an abiku (spirit child) who tries to live his life, always aware of the spirits trying to bring him back?
‘The Famished Road’ by Ben Okri
11/ In Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, what is the name of the island that is at war with Lilliput? Both islands are inhabited by tiny people who are about one-twelfth the height of ordinary human beings.
Blefuscu
12/ One of the ‘The Four Greats’ of Norwegian literature, which 19th-century writer noted for works such as ‘Gift’ (1883), ‘Skipper Worse’ (1882) and ‘Garman & Worse’ (1880) gives his name to a drilling rig that capsized in March 1980, killing 123 people?
Alexander Lange Kielland
13/ Referencing the seven women who managed to escape to safety in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth after the unexplained disintegration of the Moon, the 2015 hard science-fiction novel ‘Seveneves’ is a work by which writer, whose other works include the interactive fiction project ‘The Mongoliad’ and the award-winning ‘Baroque Cycle’ novel series?
Neal Stephenson
14/ Following Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan in 18th-century France born with an exceptional sense of smell, the 1985 novel ‘Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’ is a work by which German writer?
Patrick Süskind
15/ The title object of which 1984 debut novel is a huge clock face, encased in a glass box, with a trap behind each of the 12 numerals? The Irish Times called it ‘a work of unparalleled depravity’.
‘The Wasp Factory’ by Iain Banks
16/ Taking him twelve years to write, which Hungarian writer’s novel ‘A Book of Memories’ (1986) earned him comparisons with Marcel Proust? His latest work – the three-volume ‘Parallel Stories’ took him even longer (eighteen years) to complete.
Peter Nádas
17/ Featuring a group of boys at an Austrian military academy, the 1966 German film ‘Young Törless’ was adapted from the first novel by which Austrian philosophical writer? His unfinished novel, ‘The Man Without Qualities’ is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels.
Robert Musil
18/ ‘Heavensgate’ (1962), ‘Limits’ (1964), ‘Silences’ (1965) and ‘Labyrinths, with Path of Thunder’ (1971) were the published works of which widely anthologized Nigerian poet who died at the age of 35 fighting in the war for Biafran independence?
Christopher Okigbo
19/ Widely seen in the mid-1930s as the potential successor to Eugene O’Neill before eventually being eclipsed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, which American playwright and screenwriter’s noted works include ‘Waiting for Lefty’ (1935), ‘Awake and Sing’ (1935) and ‘Golden Boy’ (1937)?
Clifford Odets
20/ One of three stories from the First Age of Middle-earth to be published (in 2018) as a stand-alone book, JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Fall of _______’ tells the rise and fall of which secret Elven city founded by King Turgon on the steep hill Amon Gwareth within the Vale of Tumladen?
Gondolin
21/ Paraphrased by economist Milton Friedman as the title of a 1975 book, the phrase ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ and its acronym ‘TANSTAAFL’ is a central theme of which 1966 science-fiction novel – narrated by Manuel Garcia ‘Mannie’ O’Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that the supercomputer HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness?
‘The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress’ by Robert A. Heinlein
22/ Which anonymous English metrical romance written c. 1350 features the young protagonist who is deprived of his inheritance by his brother and becomes an outlaw in the forest? Having similarities with the English ballad of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood, it was also a source for Thomas Lodge’s prose romance ‘Rosalynde’ (1590), on which William Shakespeare based his ‘As You Like It’.
‘Tale of Gamelyn’
23/ Completed in 1941 while the author was in exile in the United States, which ‘Non-Aristotelian drama’ follows a young prostitute, Shen Teh, as she struggles to lead a life according to the terms of the morality taught by the gods?
‘The Good Person of Szechwan’ by Bertolt Brecht
24/ Born in 1584 in Leicestershire, which English Renaissance dramatist saw his early play ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ rejected by the audience, but achieved success when he collaborated with John Fletcher on works such as ‘Philaster’ and ‘The Scournful Lady’?
Francis Beaumont
25/ Referring to a form of dramatic expression that combines poetry, dance, music, and song, the term ‘choreopoem’ was first coined in 1975 by which American playwright and poet to describe her work ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf’? Her other works include the novels ‘Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo’ (1982) and ‘Liliane’ (1994).
Ntozake Shange