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Vikramorvashiyam
Vikramorvashiya (विक्रमोर्वशीयम्), meaning Urvashi Won by Valour, is a five-act Sanskrit play by Kālidāsa, generally his second drama, dramatizing King Purūravas's love for the celestial nymph Urvaśī.
Vila Rica
Vila Rica is an epic poem by Cláudio Manuel da Costa, written in 1773, narrating the pacification of the Guerra dos Emboabas and the founding of Minas Gerais.
Villain
A villain is a morally evil story character whose evil actions drive the plot, typically opposing the hero; one of the villain-victim-hero triad in character theory.
Villains Are Destined to Die
Villains Are Destined to Die (악역의 엔딩은 죽음뿐), also Death Is the Only Ending for the Villainess, is Gwon Gyeoeul's Korean villainess-isekai web novel (2019) adapted by SUOL into a 214-chapter webtoon; Yen Press licenses both, and an anime was announced in 2026.
Villanelle (character)
Villanelle (Oksana Astankova) is a fictional psychopathic assassin created by Luke Jennings in the Codename Villanelle novellas and played by Jodie Comer in Killing Eve (BBC America, 2018–2022). Known for her perfume-derived codename, obsession with Eve Polastri, pink tulle dress, and the divisive finale death absent from the books.
Villette (novel)
Villette (1853), Charlotte Brontë's final novel, published as Currer Bell in three volumes by Smith, Elder and Co., follows unreliable narrator Lucy Snowe teaching in a Brussels-inspired city, drawing on Brontë's unrequited love for Constantin Heger.
Villibharatam
Villibharatam (வில்லிபாரதம்), also called Villi Bharatam, is a 14th-century Tamil retelling of Vyasa's Mahabharata by the poet Villiputturar, the most important Tamil version of the epic.
Villon's Wife
Villon's Wife (Viyon no tsuma, ヴィヨンの妻) is a 1947 short story by Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, told by the common-law wife of a thieving, drink-driven poet in postwar Tokyo.
Viltrum Empire
Viltrum Empire, also called the Viltrumite Empire, is the main antagonistic faction of Invincible: a Viltrumite interstellar empire founded by Emperor Argall, devastated by the Great Purge and the Scourge Virus that left only 50 Viltrumites, later led by Grand Regent Thragg.
Vimana
Vimāna (विमान), a Sanskrit word meaning measurement, palace, aerial chariot, temple spire, or heaven, best known through the Pushpaka flying palace of the Ramayana; ancient-technology claims center on the 20th-century Vaimanika Shastra, judged unairworthy in 1974.
Vinaya Patrika
Vinaya Patrika (विनय पत्रिका, "Petition of Humility") is a set of 279 devotional stanzas in Braj Bhasha that Tulsidas composed as a petition to Rama in the late 16th or early 17th century.
Vinayagar Agaval (விநாயகர் அகவல்)
Vinayagar Agaval (விநாயகர் அகவல்), a 72-line Tamil devotional poem to Ganesha in agaval blank verse, credited to the medieval poet Avvaiyar; opens with the lotus feet, moves into Kundalini and Saiva gnana, chanted on Tuesdays and Vinayaka Chaturthi.
Vineland
Vineland is Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel, his fourth and first after Gravity's Rainbow, set in 1984 northern California among aging Sixties radicals, Zoyd Wheeler, Frenesi Gates, and Brock Vond; initially received as accessible "Pynchon Lite," later reappraised and loosely adapted in One Battle After Another (2025).
Violator (comics)
Violator, also the Clown, is Todd McFarlane's demon villain in Image Comics' Spawn, first appearing in Spawn #2 (1992); eldest of the Phlebiac Brothers, Spawn's archenemy, subject of Alan Moore's 1994 miniseries and Violator: Origin (2024), ranked 97th by IGN.
Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass
Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass is Lana Del Rey's debut poetry book (Simon & Schuster, September 29, 2020) and her first spoken word audiobook with Jack Antonoff music; a New York Times bestseller donating proceeds to Navajo charities.
Violet Evergarden (ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン)
Violet Evergarden (ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン) is Kana Akatsuki's KA Esuma Bunko light novel series (2015) about an Auto Memory Doll letter ghostwriter, adapted by Kyoto Animation into a 2018 TV anime, 2019 side story film, and 2020 feature film.
Viragaya
Viragaya (විරාගය; Devoid of Passions) is a 1956 Sinhala novel by Martin Wickramasinghe following the detached young Aravinda, widely regarded as the finest novel written in Sinhala.
Viral Hit
Viral Hit (싸움독학, How to Fight) is a 2019 Korean webtoon by Taejun Pak and Kim Junghyun about bullied teen Hobin Yu, who learns fighting from a video channel and streams fights for money. Over 2.2 billion views; adapted into a 2024 anime and a 2026 Netflix Japanese live-action series.
Virgilian epic
Virgilian epic is the tradition of Latin narrative epic founded on Virgil's Aeneid, embracing later ancient and post-classical epics measured against that poem through imitation, inversion, or revision.
Virgin New Adventures
Virgin New Adventures (VNAs): original Doctor Who novels published by Virgin Books, 1991-1999, continuing the Seventh Doctor after Survival; known for Bernice Summerfield, the Cartmel Masterplan, and a more adult tone.
Virgin Soil
Virgin Soil (Новь, Nov), published in 1877, is the last novel by Ivan Turgenev, a social novel about the Russian Populist movement and young radicals who "went to the people".
Virgin Soil Upturned
Virgin Soil Upturned (Поднятая целина, also translated Harvest on the Don) is a two-book novel by Mikhail Sholokhov about collectivization on the Don, published 1932 and 1959 and awarded the Lenin Prize in 1960.
Vis and Ramin
Vis and Ramin (Persian: ویس و رامین) is an 11th-century Persian verse romance by Fakhr al-Din As'ad Gorgani, telling of the love between Vis, a queen of Media, and Ramin.
Viserys Targaryen
Viserys Targaryen (Viserys III, the Beggar King) is the exiled Targaryen prince in A Song of Ice and Fire, brother of Daenerys, killed by molten gold at Vaes Dothrak; distinct from kings Viserys I and II.
Vishakha
Vishakha (विशाखा) is a landmark 1942 collection of Marathi poetry by Kusumagraj, whose patriotic poems, written against the Quit India Movement, made him a major literary force.
Vishnu Puranamu
Vishnu Puranamu (విష్ణు పురాణము) is the Telugu title of the Vishnu Purana, one of the eighteen great Sanskrit puranas, carried by Telugu renderings including K. Bhavanarayana's 1930 translation.
Vision of Anahuac
Vision of Anahuac (Visión de Anáhuac) is a 1917 essay by Alfonso Reyes recreating the first Spaniards' view of the Valley of Mexico in 1519.
Visions of Cody
Visions of Cody is Jack Kerouac's experimental 1951–52 novel on Neal Cassady (Cody Pomeray), first published in part by New Directions in 1960 (750 signed copies) and in full by McGraw-Hill in 1972; Kerouac considered it his masterwork.
Visiting a Garden Without Meeting the Owner
"Visiting a Garden Without Meeting the Owner" (You Yuan Bu Zhi, 游园不值) is a quatrain by Southern Song poet Ye Shaoweng about a closed garden gate and an apricot branch over the wall.
Visramiani
Visramiani (ვისრამიანი) is the Old Georgian prose translation of the Persian romance Vis o Ramin, made in the 12th century and attributed to Sargis Tmogveli.