The Lady in the Van' by Alan Bennett (australian

essay)
Essentially, the lady in the van was an elderly woman by the name of Miss Shepherd. She had been
parked in the London street where Bennett resides and had become somewhat of a local attraction -- and
nuisance -- since the late 1960s. By June 1971 "scarcely a day passes without some sort of incident
involving the old lady" including a young man giving the van a "terrific shaking", another banging on the
side of the van to "flush out for his grinning girlfriend the old witch who lives there" and passing drunks
smashing all the windows.
[...] to find such sadism and intolerance so close at hand began actively to depress me, and
having to be on alert for every senseless attack made it impossible to work. There came a day
when, after a long succession of such incidents, I suggested that she spend at least the nights in
a lean-to at the side of my house. Initially reluctant, as with any change, over the next two years
she gradually abandoned the van for the hut.

The swallows of Kabul (Africa)

Mohsen Ramat has grown used to executions under the Taliban, his conscience subdued by the frequency of
the deaths. The women in their burqas are only specters, existing at the fringes of society. Ramat and his
exquisite wife have lost everything; he wanders the city without purpose, while she stays inside the home,
unwilling to endure the random violence of the streets. To please her husband, Zunaira agrees to walk with
him, seduced by earlier, happy days, but they are almost undone by that walk and Zunaira is humiliated
beyond endurance.

The Swallows of Kabul is a scathing indictment of a world turned to stone, where the worship of a
fundamentalist God makes life uninhabitable. The softness of women has been extracted from society; due
to that separation, men’s hearts have hardened.

Journey to the west (asian novel-china)

 "the land of the South knows only greed, hedonism, promiscuity, and sins", the Buddha instructs
the Bodhisattva Guan Yin to search Tang China for someone to take the Buddhist sutras of
"transcendence and persuasion for good will" back to the East. Part of the story here also relates to how
Xuánzàng becomes a monk (as well as revealing his past life as a disciple of the Buddha named
"Golden Cicada" (金蟬子) and comes about being sent on this pilgrimage by Emperor Taizong of Tang,
who previously escaped death with the help of an underworld official).