Invitation to World Literature
Candide Candide – Connections

In the Images of World Literature slideshow, you saw images inspired by Candide. Here at Connections, you can find varied interpretations, analyses, and performances of the story of the best of all possible worlds.
Movies/Popular Interpretations/TV/Performance
- Candy, a film directed by Christian Marquand, is an adaptation of the 1968 Terry Southern novel of the same name.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062776/ - Candide, a 1956 operetta with music by Leonard Bernstein, follows the story of the book.
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365501503/ - See a clip of Cunégonde (played by Kristin Chenowith from the video episode) and the Old Woman (played by Patti LuPone) singing “We are Women” from Bernstein’s Candide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giRppPYWcgc - Optimism is a 2009 theatrical adaptation of the novel by Michael Kantor and Tom Wright. See a clip of the death of Jacques the Anabaptist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6hk9H3yJTU
Art
- Download the Google Earth plug-in and recreate Candide’s voyages with real maps thanks to the New York Public Library.
http://candide.nypl.org/content/google-earth/1 - See art from the general public, inspired by their readings of Candide, and gathered by the New York Public Library.
http://candide.nypl.org/content/do-it-yourself-candide
Books
- Nedim Gürsel, Le voyage de Candide à Istanbul, 2001. This novel takes one scene from Candide, when he meets Ahmed III, the deposed Turkish sultan, on a ship going from Venice to Istanbul, and builds a new story around it (link to review).
http://www.amazon.com/voyage-Candide-%C3%83%C2%A0-Istanbul/dp/2876612402/ - Leonardo Siascia, Candido ovvero un sogno fatto in Sicilia, 1977. The title in English is Candide: Or, a Dream Dreamed in Sicily. While Siascia’s book is quite different from Voltaire’s, the connections, beginning with the title, are clear.
http://www.amazon.com/Candido-Dreamed-Sicily-Leonardo-Sciascia/dp/085635404X/ - Terry Southern, Candy, 1968. American author Southern adapts Candide in a parody of pornography and popular psychology.
http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Terry-Southern/dp/0802134297/ - Emile Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist , 2001. A sharply political satire by an Israeli Arab, inspired by Voltaire.
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Saeed-Pessoptimist-Interlink/dp/1566564158/