Family saga

Template:Short description Template:See also Template:Refimprove The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often a thematic device used to portray particular historical events, changes of social circumstances, or the ebb and flow of fortunes from a multitude of perspectives.

The word saga comes from Old Norse, where it meant "what is said, utterance, oral account, notification" and "(structured) narrative, story (about somebody)",<ref>Dictionary of Old Norse Prose/Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog (Copenhagen: [Arnamagnæan Commission/Arnamagnæanske kommission], 1983–), s.v. '1 saga sb. f.'.</ref> and was originally borrowed into English from Old Norse by scholars in the eighteenth century to refer to the Old Norse prose narratives known as sagas.<ref>"saw, n.2.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).</ref><ref>"saga, n.1.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).</ref>

The typical family saga follows generations of a family through a period of history in a series of novels. A number of subgenres of the form exist such as the AGA saga.

Successful writers of popular family sagas include Susan Howatch, R. F. Delderfield and Philippa Carr.

Literature

• The sagas of Icelanders – the medieval Icelandic family sagas in which the word "saga" is derived
• Mahabharata, by Vyasa – the chronicle of the Chandravanshi Rajput clan founded by Puru, also considered the longest poem in human history
• Dream of the Red Chamber – one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it chronicles the rise and decline of the Jia family
• A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight, by Henry Williamson
• Ada or Ardor, by Vladimir Nabokov
• Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner
• The Artamonov Business, by Maxim Gorky
• Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
• Beauty Is a Wound, by Eka Kurniawan
• Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann
• Captains and the Kings, by Taylor Caldwell
• Harmonia Caelestis, a historicist piece by Péter Esterházy
• The Cairo Trilogy, by Naguib Mahfouz
• The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard
• The Covenant, by James A. Michener
• The Crowthers of Bankdam, by Thomas Armstrong
• Dune, by Frank Herbert
• East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
• The Emberverse series, by S. M. Stirling
• Evergreen, by Belva Plain
• Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Family Tree tetralogy, by Ann M. Martin
• Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin
• The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
• The Golovlyov Family, by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
• The Good Earth and its sequels, by Pearl S. Buck
• Holes, by Louis Sachar
• Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
• Homestuck, by Andrew Hussie
• The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
• The Immigrants, by Howard Fast
• The Jalna books, by Mazo de la Roche
• The Kent Family Chronicles and The Crown Family Saga, by John Jakes
• Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
• Os Maias, by Eça de Queiroz
• Old-fashioned Story by Magda Szabó
• I Malavoglia, by Giovanni Verga
• The Mallens, by Catherine Cookson
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Oppermanns, by Lion Feuchtwanger
• The Palaeologian Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, by George Leonardos
• The Promise, by Damon Galgut
• Radetzkymarsch (Radetzky March), by Joseph Roth
• Roma, by Steven Saylor
• Roots, by Alex Haley
• The Silmarillion, by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Sometimes A Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
• Strangers and Brothers, by C. P. Snow
• The Thibaults, by Roger Martin du Gard
• Time and the Wind, by Erico Verissimo
• The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
• The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolò, Renaissance-set novel series by Dorothy Dunnett
• Under the North Star, by Väinö Linna
• The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
• White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
• The Witcher, by Andrzej Sapkowski

Film and television

• American Pop
• Arrested Development
• The Best of Youth, in Italian La Meglio Gioventù
• Blackadder
• Dark
• Game of Thrones
• The Godfather
• Heimat
• House of the Dragon
• Household Saints
• How the West Was Won
• I, Claudius
• In a Land of Plenty
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Our Friends in the North
• Raajneeti
• Roots
• Roots: The Next Generations
• Sibiriada
• Star Wars
• Succession
• Sunshine
• Taken
• The Thorn Birds
• The Dirtwater Dynasty
• This Is Us
• Vacas

Video games

• What Remains of Edith Finch