Fill in the Blank – GK Questions

William Ernest Henley wrote 'Invictus' in 1875 while recovering from multiple amputations due to tubercular arthritis.

Prince Hamlet delivers this soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 1 of the play, pondering life, death, and suicide.

Sachin Tendulkar co-authored his autobiography 'Playing It My Way' with Boria Majumdar. It was released in 2014.

Rohinton Mistry's 'A Fine Balance' (1995) is set in an unnamed Indian city during the Emergency (1975-1977), exploring themes of cruelty, corruption, and resilience.

Émile Zola was the leading figure of the Naturalist movement, believing that literature should observe and record reality objectively, much like a scientific experiment.

Samuel Clemens adopted the pen name Mark Twain, a riverboat term meaning 'two fathoms deep' (safe water), before publishing his early stories.

Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel 'The God of Small Things'. (Note: V.S. Naipaul won it earlier in 1971, but he was a British citizen of Indian descent; Roy was the first Indian citizen).

Goethe worked on 'Faust' for over 60 years. Part One was published in 1808, and Part Two was completed shortly before his death in 1832.

Sophocles wrote 'Oedipus Rex' around 429 BCE. It is the second of his three Theban plays and is considered a masterpiece of ancient Greek tragedy.

Harivansh Rai Bachchan published 'Madhushala' in 1935. It is a metaphorical poem comparing life to a tavern, using wine and the tavern as central motifs.

Raja Rao published 'Kanthapura' in 1938. It is celebrated for its unique narrative style that attempts to capture the rhythm of Indian speech in English.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar wrote 'Annihilation of Caste' in 1936 as an undelivered speech for the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal. It is a foundational text against the caste system.

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote 'Vande Mataram' and included it in his 1882 Bengali novel 'Anandamath'. It became a major rallying cry for the Indian independence movement.

Firdausi composed the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran. It is the longest epic poem ever written by a single poet.

The Tripitaka (Three Baskets) is the traditional term for the Buddhist scriptures. The version most commonly known is the Pali Canon of the Theravada school.

Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Beloved' in 1988. She later won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Shashi Tharoor wrote 'The Great Indian Novel' in 1989, reimagining the Mahabharata in the context of the Indian independence movement.

Ruskin Bond wrote 'The Blue Umbrella', a popular novella about a young girl in a Himalayan village.

Shashi Tharoor wrote 'Why I Am a Hindu' in 2018, exploring the pluralistic nature of Hinduism.

Victor Hugo published 'Les Misérables' in 1862. It is a French historical novel about justice and redemption.