Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie are short story collections by Louisiana Creole author Kate Chopin. Many of the stories are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana. The characters in stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Table of Contents: Bayou Folk: A No-Account Creole In and Out of Old Natchitoches In Sabine A Very Fine Fiddle Beyond the Bayou Old Aunt Peggy The Return of Alcibiade A Rude Awakening The Bênitous' Slave Désirée's Baby A Turkey Hunt Madame Célestin's Divorce Love on the Bon-Dieu Loka Boulôt and Boulotte For Marse Chouchoute A Visit to Avoyelles A Wizard from Gettysburg Ma'ame Pélagie At the 'Cadian Ball La Belle Zoraïde A Gentleman of Bayou Têche A Lady of Bayou St. John A Night in Acadie: A Night in Acadie Athénaïse After the Winter Polydore Regret A Matter of Prejudice Caline A Dresden Lady in Dixie Nég Créol The Lilies Azélie Mamouche A Sentimental Soul Dead Men's Shoes At Chênière Caminada Odalie Misses Mass Cavanelle Tante Cat'rinette A Respectable Woman Ripe Figs Ozème's Holiday

"Today's fiction is increasingly populated by multilingual urban societies in all their rich cultural variety," contends Bernard Botes Krüger, making a persuasive case that "readers need to 'hear' authentic sounding dialogue from the mouths of foreign-language characters-something which mere translations into standard English can never adequately accomplish." The concept of foreign-language dialogue in fiction is not new; many accomplished authors of the past have used a variety of subtle techniques to help their readers understand instances of 'foreign' dialogue. However, those techinues have never been thoroughly isolated and examined-until now. Using Britain's 'Colonial Era' literature as a starting point in this work, the author discusses and systematically catagorizes every type of 'device' used in the past, assembling in the process a veritible toolbox of techniques which aspiring writers can implement to enrich their multilingual dialogue.

Joyce Carol Oates has performed a full review of her acclaimed 1992 anthology, The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, and in this second edition embraces those authors who have come to define turn-of-the-century American literature. Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz, Richard Ford, and David Foster Wallace are just a few of the authors whose stories are now represented. Each story is accompanied by a brief introduction, and there is also a fascinating introductory essay by Joyce Carol Oates that explains why these stories form the foundation of the American literary canon, and the trends and innovations that have taken place in the last twenty years.

This collection addresses the key American short story writers-Poe, Irving, Melville, Hawthorne, Twain, Crane, Bierce, Chopin, and James-and addresses both the vision and the design of their collective achievement.

This concise version contains brief biographies of important authors, plot summaries of individual works, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of American literary life and history from the Colonial period to the modern era.

**** The first edition (1989) of this appealing popular reference is cited in ARBA 1990, Sheehy Suppl., and--we blush--RandR Book News. It provides a detailed yet concise portrait of every state (as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico), combining facts and statistics to profile the state's history, economy, population, cultural development, natural resources, and political system. Each chapter concludes with an extensive bibliography of nonfiction and reference volumes and an annotated list of literary works (fiction, memoirs, and biographies) in which the state and its people play a major role. Included in this revised and updated edition are two new sections, one covering the environment, the other presenting unusual state facts. For a broad audience. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR