Saga novel explained

A saga novel is a genre encompassing the wide scopes of stories and narratives such as religious saga, national saga, family saga, human saga, or other.

History

The saga novel as a genre originates from the Icelandic history of family sagas[1]

Examples

A major example of a saga novel in English literature is George Eliot's Middlemarch. In Russia, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace is a representative saga novel. In Korea, Kyunglee Park's Lands (Toji) is another example. In the United States, Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind belong to the category of saga novels. In China, Luo Guanzhong (Lo Kuanchung)'s Sanguo zhi yanyi (Sankuo chi yen-i; Romance of the Three Kingdoms) is the most representative and well-known saga novel since the 14th century.

Examples of Saga Novels!Title!Author!Year!Culture/Nation/Category
Thomas Mann1901 Germany
John Steinbeck1952 US
Gabriel García Márquez1967 Colombia
The Patternist SeriesOctavia E. Butler1976US
RootsAlex Haley1976 US
Chesapeake  James A. Michener1978 US
The House of the SpiritsIsabel Allende1982 Chile
The Inheritance TrilogyN. K. Jemisin2010US
BarkskinsAnnie Proulx2016Canada/US
HomegoingYaa Gyasi2016Ghana/US
PachinkoMin Jin Lee2017Korea/Japan
A Woman is No Man Etaf Rum2019Arab/US
The Old Drift 2019Zambia
2019New Orleans

Notes and References

  1. Lönnroth. Lars. The Concept of Genre in Saga Literature. 1975. Scandinavian Studies. 47. 4. 419–426. 40917549. 0036-5637.