Literary fiction

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Literary fiction

Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage since around 1970, principally to distinguish serious fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit

Literary merit

Literary merit is a quality of written work, generally applied to the genre of literary fiction. A work is said to have literary merit if it is a work of quality, that is if it has some aesthetic value....
) from the many types of genre fiction

Genre fiction

Genre fiction is a term for fiction written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre....
and popular fiction (i.e., paraliterature

Paraliterature

Paraliterature is an academic term for genre fiction, such as science fiction, fantasy, Mystery fiction, pulp magazine and comic books, which is not generally considered literary fiction by mainstream literary standards....
). In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more on style, psychological depth, and character, whereas mainstream commercial fiction (the page-turner) focuses more on narrative

Narrative

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Encyclopedia

Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage since around 1970, principally to distinguish serious fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit

Literary merit

Genre fiction

Paraliterature

Narrative

A narrative or story that is created in a constructive format that describes a sequence of fictional or Non-fiction events. It derives from the Latin language verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled"....
and plot.

What distinguishes literary fiction from other genres is somewhat subjective, and as in other artistic media, genres may overlap. Even so, literary fiction is generally characterized as distinctive based on its content and style ("literariness", the concern to be "writerly"). The term literary fiction is considered hard to define very precisely but is commonly associated with the criteria used in literary award

Literary award

A literary award is an award presented to an author who has written a particularly lauded piece or body of work. There are awards for forms of writing ranging from poetry to novels....
s and marketing of certain kinds of novels, since literary prizes usually concern themselves with literary fiction, and their shortlists can give a working definition.

Scope

Literary fiction includes works written as short story

Short story

The short story refers to a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, usually in narrative format. This format or medium tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels or books....
, novella

Novella

A novella is a writing, fictional, prose narrative longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. While there is disagreement as to what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000....
, novel

Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
and novel sequence

Novel sequence

A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence....
. In the world of comic writing, graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a type of comic book, usually with a lengthy and complex storyline similar to those of novels. The term also encompasses comic short story anthologies, and in some cases bound collections of previously published comic book series ....
s are sometimes considered literary fiction, as represented by Watchmen
Watchmen

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins . The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form....
.

Literary magazine

Literary magazine

A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters....
s, especially those affiliated with universities, or annual anthologies like the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is a prestigious American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year....
, The Best American Short Stories, or O. Henry Awards, typically restrict their selections to literary fiction. A no-genre-fiction rule for submissions is common, although slipstream (genre) or magic realism

Magic realism

Magic realism, or magical realism, is an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" setting....
is sometimes included.

As a genre

It has become a commonplace idea that literary fiction is in itself just another genre

Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
. This is in accord with the marketing

Marketing

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large....
practices now general in the book trade. It may also be taken to be the latest version of the death of the novel

Death of the novel

The death of the novel is the common name for the theoretical discussion of the declining importance of the novel as literary form. Many 20th century authors entered into the debate, often sharing their ideas in their own fiction and non-fiction writings....
debate that has run from 1950, and reflects the importance of the novel

Novel

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
as the central literary form in Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe refers to the countries in the western most half of Europe. This concept has had different meanings, political and cultural as well as geographical issues have influenced the area....
and North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
from the 1930s. However, literary fiction does not fit the general definition of a genre, as it lacks the cohesion of genres such as westerns or romance and lacks any kind of genre conventions. One would be hard-pressed to come up with a list of genre conventions that would also apply historically to include everything — from the surrealist prose of Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish people writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalism....
to the punchy prose of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
to the works of Victorian England.

In a June 2006 interview with John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series ....
on The Charlie Rose Show, Updike stated that he felt this term, when applied to his work, greatly limited him and his expectations of what might come of his writing, and so does not really like it. He said that all his works are literary simply because "they are written in words."

External links

at the

Bibliography

Robert Rebein. Hicks, Tribes, & Dirty Realists: American Fiction After Postmodernism. University Press of Kentucky, 2001. ISBN 0813121760