Family saga

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)',[1] 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.[2][3]

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.

Examples of family sagas of literary note include:

• The Sagas of Icelanders - the medieval Icelandic family sagas whence the word 'saga' is derived;
• 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;
• Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset;
• Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh;
• Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann;
• The Covenant, by James A. Michener;
• Dune, by Frank Herbert;
• The Tower and the Hive series by Anne McCaffrey, set in the universe of the "Pegasus" trilogy;
• the Shannara cycle, by Terry Brooks;
• A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight, by Henry Williamson;
• The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy;
• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende;
• The Jalna books, by Mazo de la Roche;
• The Kent Family Chronicles and The Crown Family Saga, by John Jakes;
• Strangers and Brothers, by C. P. Snow;
• The Immigrants, by Howard Fast;
• The Mallens, by Catherine Cookson;
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Silmarillion, by J. R. R. Tolkien;
• Time and the Wind, by Erico Verissimo
• The Palaeologian Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, by George Leonardos;
• Roots, by Alex Haley;
• Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi;
• The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough;
• Holes, a novel by Louis Sachar;
• The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolò, Renaissance-set novel series by Dorothy Dunnett;
• Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald;
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides;
• White Teeth, by Zadie Smith;
• The Witcher, by Andrzej Sapkowski;
• Captains and the Kings, by Taylor Cadwell;
• Evergreen, by Belva Plain;
• The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold;
• The Emberverse series, by S. M. Stirling
• Roma, by Steven Saylor

In cinema and television

• American Pop
• The Best of Youth, in Italian La Meglio Gioventù
• Blackadder
• The Godfather
• Heimat
• Household Saints
• How the West Was Won
• I, Claudius
• In a Land of Plenty
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
• Our Friends in the North
• Roots
• Roots: The Next Generations
• Star Wars
• Sunshine
• Taken
• The Thorn Birds
• The Dirtwater Dynasty
• This Is Us
• Vacas

References

1. Dictionary of Old Norse Prose/Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog (Copenhagen: [Arnamagnæan Commission/Arnamagnæanske kommission], 1983–), s.v. '1 saga sb. f.'.
2. "saw, n.2.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).
3. "saga, n.1.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).