A Separate Peace | A Separate Piece: An overview

A comprehensive essay exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the novel, as well as a summary of the literary traditions the novel falls under.

Anne Hiebert Alton
Alton is a member of an honorary research association at the University of Sydney, Australia. In the following essay, she places A Separate Peace within three distinct literary traditions and examines the novel's strengths and weaknesses.

John Knowles based his first novel, A Separate Peace (1959), on two short stories, entitled "Phineas" and "A Turn in the Sun." An immediate success, it won the William Faulkner Foundation Award, the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and an award from the Independent School...


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