A short story is a piece of prosefiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of
legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...
anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
s in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.
Definition
The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre.
Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
's
essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
" The Philosophy of Composition" (1846). H.G. Wells described the purpose of the short story as "The jolly art, of making something very bright and moving; it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or profoundly illuminating, having only this essential, that it should take from fifteen to fifty minutes to read aloud." According to William Faulkner, a short story is character-driven and a writer's job is to "...trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”
Some authors have argued that a short story must have a strict form. Somerset Maugham thought that the short story "must have a definite design, which includes a point of departure, a climax and a point of test; in other words, it must have a plot".
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (13 March 18841 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among th ...
had a similar view: "A story should be a story; a record of things happening full of incidents, swift movements, unexpected development, leading through suspense to a climax and a satisfying denouement."
This view of the short story as a finished product of art is however opposed by Anton Chekov, who thought that a story should have neither a beginning nor an end. It should just be a "slice of life", presented suggestively. In his stories, Chekov does not round off the end but leaves it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.Fatma, Gulnaz ''A Short History of the Short Story: Western and Asian Traditions'' Modern History Press 2012, p.2-3Sukumar Azhikode defined a short story as "a brief prose narrative with an intense episodic or anecdotal effect".
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
She was a Southern literature, Southe ...
emphasized the need to consider what is exactly meant by the descriptor short. Short story writers may define their works as part of the artistic and personal expression of the form. They may also attempt to resist categorization by genre and fixed formation.William Boyd, British author and short story writer has said:
hort storiesseem to answer something very deep in our nature as if, for the duration of its telling, something special has been created, some essence of our experience extrapolated, some temporary sense has been made of our common, turbulent journey towards the grave and oblivion.
In the 1880s, the term "short story" acquired its modern meaning – having initially referred to children's tales. During the early to mid-20th century, the short story underwent expansive experimentation which further hindered attempts to comprehensively provide a definition. Longer stories that cannot be called novels are sometimes considered "
novellas
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
" or novelettes and, like short stories, may be collected into the more marketable form of "collections", often containing previously unpublished stories. Sometimes, authors who do not have the time or money to write a novella or novel decide to write short stories instead, working out a deal with a popular website or magazine to publish them for profit. Around the world, the modern short story is comparable to
lyrics
Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...
, dramas, novels and essays – although examination of it as a major literary form remains diminished.
Length
In terms of length,
word count
The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and ad ...
is typically anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 for short stories; however, some have 15,000 words and are still classed as short stories. Stories of fewer than 1,000 words are sometimes referred to as "short short stories", or "
flash fiction
Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature"); ...
".
Short stories have no set length. In terms of word count, there is no official demarcation between an
anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
, a short story, and a novel. Rather, the form's parameters are given by the rhetorical and practical context in which a given story is produced and considered so that what constitutes a short story may differ between genres, countries, eras, and commentators. Like the novel, the short story's predominant shape reflects the demands of the available markets for publication, and the evolution of the form seems closely tied to the evolution of the publishing industry and the submission guidelines of its constituent houses.
As a point of reference for the genre writer, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America define short story length in the Nebula Awards for
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
submission guidelines as having a word count of fewer than 7,500 words.
History
Short stories date back to oral storytelling traditions which originally produced epics such as the
Ramayana
The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...
, the
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the s ...
, and
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' and ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
''. Oral narratives were often told in the form of rhyming or
rhythmic Rhythmic may refer to:
* Related to rhythm
* Rhythmic contemporary, a radio format
* Rhythmic adult contemporary, a radio format
* Rhythmic gymnastics, a form of gymnastics
* Rhythmic (chart)
The Rhythmic chart (also called Rhythmic Airplay, and ...
verse, often including recurring sections or, in the case of Homer, '' Homeric epithets''. Such stylistic devices often acted as
mnemonics
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imager ...
for easier recall, rendition, and adaptation of the story. Short sections of verse might focus on individual narratives that could be told at one sitting. The overall arc of the tale would emerge only through the telling of multiple such sections.
According to Azhikode, the short story has existed "in the most ancient times as the parable, the adventure-story of men, gods and demons, the account of daily events, the joke". All languages have had variations of short tales and stories almost since their inceptions. Emerging in the 17th century from oral storytelling traditions, the short story has grown to encompass a body of work so diverse as to defy easy characterization. "The short story as a carefully contrived literary form is of modern origin", wrote Azhikode.
Another ancient form of a short story, the
anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
, was popular under the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
. Anecdotes functioned as a sort of parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. Many surviving Roman anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the ''
Gesta Romanorum
''Gesta Romanorum'', meaning ''Deeds of the Romans'' (a very misleading title), is a Latin collection of anecdotes and tales that was probably compiled about the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th. It still possesses a two-fold l ...
''. Anecdotes remained popular throughout Europe well into the 18th century with the publication of the fictional anecdotal letters of Sir
Roger de Coverley
Roger de (or of) Coverley (also Sir Roger de Coverley or ...Coverly) is the name of an English country dance and a Scottish country dance (also known as The Haymakers). An early version was published in ''The Dancing Master'', 9th edition (1695) ...
.
In Europe, the oral story-telling tradition began to develop into written stories in the early 14th century, most notably with Geoffrey Chaucer's '' Canterbury Tales'' and Giovanni Boccaccio's '' Decameron''. Both of these books are composed of individual short stories, which range from farce or humorous anecdotes to well-crafted literary fiction, set within a larger narrative story (a frame story), although the frame-tale device was not adopted by all writers. At the end of the 16th century, some of the most popular short stories in Europe were the darkly tragic " novella" of
Matteo Bandello
Matteo Bandello ( 1480 – 1562) was an Italian writer, soldier, monk, and, later, a Bishop mostly known for his novellas. His collection of 214 novellas made him the most popular short-story writer of his day.
Biography
Matteo Bandello wa ...
, especially in their French translation.
The mid 17th century in France saw the development of a refined short novel, the "nouvelle", by such authors as
Madame de Lafayette
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (baptized 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693), better known as Madame de La Fayette, was a French writer; she authored ''La Princesse de Clèves'', France's first historical novel and one ...
. Traditional fairy tales began to be published in the late 17th century; one of the most famous collections was by Charles Perrault. The appearance of Antoine Galland's first modern translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights, a storehouse of Middle Eastern folk and fairy tales, is the '' Thousand and One Nights'' (or ''Arabian Nights'') (from 1704; another translation appeared in 1710–12). His translation would have an enormous influence on the 18th-century European short stories of
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
, Diderot and others.
In India, there is a rich heritage of ancient folktales as well as a compiled body of short fiction which shaped the sensibility of modern Indian short story. Some of the famous
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
collections of legends, folktales, fairy tales, and fables are Panchatantra,
Hitopadesha
''Hitopadesha'' (Sanskrit: हितोपदेशः, IAST: ''Hitopadeśa'', "Beneficial Advice") is an Indian text in the Sanskrit language consisting of fables with both animal and human characters. It incorporates maxims, worldly wisdom and ...
and
Kathasaritsagara
The ''Kathāsaritsāgara'' ("Ocean of the Streams of Stories") (Devanagari: कथासरित्सागर) is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold in Sanskrit by the Shaivite Somadeva.
...
.
Jataka tales
The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
, originally written in
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...
, is a compilation of tales concerning the previous births of Lord
Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
. The Frame story, also known as the frame narrative or story within a story, is a narrative technique that probably originated in ancient Indian works such as Panchatantra.
The evolution of printing technologies and periodical editions were among the factors contributing to the increasing importance of short story publications. Pioneering the rules of the genre in the
Western canon
The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...
Early examples of short stories were published separately between 1790 and 1810, but the first true collections of short stories appeared between 1810 and 1830 in several countries.
The first short stories in the United Kingdom were gothic tales like Richard Cumberland's "remarkable narrative", "The Poisoner of Montremos" (1791). Novelists such as Sir
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...
and
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
also wrote influential short stories during this time. Germany soon followed the United Kingdom's example by producing short stories; the first collection of short stories was by
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amph ...
in 1810 and 1811.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
became one of the first American short story writers, taking a cosmopolitan approach to writing. His concise technique, deemed the "single effect", has had tremendous influence on the formation of the modern short story.
Examples include:
*
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
**
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...
***
Mateo Falcone
''Mateo Falcone'' is an 1829 short story by Prosper Mérimée. It first appeared in the May issue of ''Revue de Paris''. Its tightly focused narrative was well received and it has been called the original French short story.
Plot
The narrator rec ...
(1829)
*
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
**
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
*** "
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in ''Burton's Gentleman's Magazine'', then included in the collection ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' in 1840. The short story ...
The Cask of Amontillado
"The Cask of Amontillado" (sometimes spelled "The Casque of Amontillado" ) is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of ''Godey's Lady's Book''. The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at ca ...
detective stories
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...
Twice-Told Tales
''Twice-Told Tales'' is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume was published in the spring of 1837 and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence th ...
'' (1837)
** John Neal
***"Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (1829)
***"David Whicher" (1832)
1850–1900
In the latter half of the 19th century, the growth of print magazines and journals created a strong demand for short fiction of between 3,000 and 15,000 words. In 1890s Britain, literary periodicals such as '' The Yellow Book'', '' Black & White,'' and ''
The Strand Magazine
''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...
'' popularized the short story. Britain was not alone in the endeavor to strengthen the short story movement. French author Guy de Maupassant composed the short stories "'' Boule de Suif''" ("Ball of Fat", 1880) and "''L'Inutile Beauté''" ("The Useless Beauty", 1890), which are important examples of French realism. Russian author Anton Chekhov was also influential in the movement.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in India, many writers created short stories centered on daily life and the social scene of the different socioeconomic groups. Rabindranath Tagore published more than 150 short stories on the lives of the poor and oppressed such as peasants, women, and villagers under colonial misrule and exploitation. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tagore's contemporary, was another pioneer in Bengali short stories. Chattopadhyay's stories focused on the social scenario of rural Bengal and the lives of common people, especially the oppressed classes. The prolific Indian author of short stories
Munshi Premchand
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known by his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of ...
, pioneered the genre in the Hindustani language, writing over 200 short stories and many novels in a style characterized by realism and an unsentimental and authentic introspection into the complexities of Indian society.
In the United States, Washington Irving was responsible for creating some of the first short stories of American origin, " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "
Rip Van Winkle
"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls aslee ...
". Twenty years later, in 1884, Brander Matthews, the first American professor of dramatic literature, published ''The Philosophy of the Short-Story''. During that same year, Matthews was the first one to name the emerging genre "short story". Another theorist of
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...
fiction was Henry James, who produced some of the most influential short narratives of the time.
The spread of the short story movement continued into South America, specifically Brazil. The novelist Machado de Assis was an important short story writer from Brazil at the time, under the influences of Xavier de Maistre,
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
**
Bolesław Prus
Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, as well as a distinctive voice in world li ...
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
**
Almeida Garrett
João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett (; 4 February 1799 – 9 December 1854) was a Portuguese poet, orator, playwright, novelist, journalist, politician, and a peer of the realm. A major promoter of t ...
**
Alexandre Herculano
Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araújo (28 March 181013 September 1877) was a Portuguese novelist and historian.
Early life
Herculano's family had humble origins. One of his grandfathers was a foreman stonemason in the royal employ. Herculan ...
**
Eça de Queiroz
José Maria de Eça de Queiroz (; 25 November 1845 – 16 August 1900) is generally considered to have been the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style. Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert. In the London ''Observer'', ...
*
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
**
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (; rus, links=no, Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́невIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; 9 November 1818 – 3 September 1883 (Old Style dat ...
Ivan the Fool
Ivan the Fool () or Ivan the Ninny is a lucky fool stock character who appears in Russian folklore, a very simple-minded, but, nevertheless, lucky young man. Ivan is described as a likeable fair-haired and blue-eyed youth.
The approximate se ...
The Lady with the Dog
"The Lady with the Dog" (russian: Дама с собачкой, translit=Dama s sobachkoy) is a short story by Anton Chekhov. First published in 1899, it describes an adulterous affair between an unhappily married Moscow banker and a young married ...
" (1899)
**
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
The Three Strangers
"The Three Strangers" is a short story by Thomas Hardy from 1883.
Background
The story is a pastoral history told by an omniscient narrator more than 50 years after the event. The sheep-stealer is a kind of folk hero who stole to survive and escap ...
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' is a collection of twelve short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, w ...
(1892)-''
detective story
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specu ...
Science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention. The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its orig ...
The Real Thing The Real Thing or Real Thing may refer to:
Film and television
* The Real Thing (film), ''The Real Thing'' (film) or ''Livers Ain't Cheap'', a 1996 American film
* ''The Real Thing'', a 1980 television documentary by James Burke (science historian) ...
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...
1900–1945
In the United Kingdom, periodicals like ''
The Strand Magazine
''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...
'' and '' Story-Teller'' contributed to the popularity of the short story. Several authors during this time wrote short stories centered on the devices of satire and humor. One such author, Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), also known by his pen name of Saki, wrote satirical short stories about
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
England. P.G. Wodehouse published his first collection of comical stories about the valet, Jeeves, in 1917. Other common genres of short stories during the early to mid 1900s in England were
detective stories
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
wrote his collection of short stories, Twenty-One Stories, between 1929 and 1954. Many of these short stories are classified in the genres of thriller, suspense, or even horror. The European short story movement during this time was not unique to England. In Ireland,
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
published his short story collection ''
Dubliners
''Dubliners'' is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. It presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.
The stories were writ ...
'' in 1914. These stories, written in a more accessible style than his later novels, are based on careful observation of the inhabitants of his birth city.
In the first half of the 20th century, a number of high-profile American magazines such as ''The Atlantic Monthly'', '' Harper's Magazine'', ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
repeatedly turned to short-story writing to pay his numerous debts. His first collection, '' Flappers and Philosophers,'' appeared in book form in 1920. Ernest Hemingway's concise writing style was perfectly suited for shorter fiction. Influenced by the short stories of
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...
and Jack London, Hemingway's work "marks a new phase in the history of the short story". The creation and study of the short story as a medium began to emerge as an academic discipline due to Blanche Colton Williams' “groundbreaking work on structure and analysis of the short story” and her publication of ''A Handbook on Short Story Writing'' (1917), described as “the first practical aid to growing young writers that was put on the market in this country.”
In
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
,
Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza (31 December 1878 – 19 February 1937) was a Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer.
He wrote stories which, in their jungle settings, used the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of m ...
became one of the most influential short story writers in the Spanish language. With a clear influence from
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
, he had a great skill in using the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of man and animal to survive. He also excelled in portraying mental illness and hallucinatory states.
In India,
Saadat Hasan Manto
Saadat Hasan Manto (; Punjabi, ur, , ; 11 May 1912 – 18 January 1955) was a Pakistani writer, playwright and author born in Ludhiana, who was active in British India and later, after the 1947 partition of India, in Pakistan.
Writing mai ...
, the master of the short story in the Urdu language, is revered for his exceptional depth, irony, and sardonic humor. The author of some 250 short stories, radio plays, essays, reminiscences, and a novel, Manto is widely admired for his analyses of violence, bigotry, prejudice, and the relationships between reason and unreason. Combining realism with surrealism and irony, Manto's works, such as the celebrated short story Toba Tek Singh, are aesthetic masterpieces that continue to give profound insight into the nature of human loss, violence, and devastation. Another famous Urdu writer is
Ismat Chughtai
Ismat Chughtai (21 August 1915 – 24 October 1991) was an Indian Urdu novelist, short story writer, liberal humanist and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1930s, she wrote extensively on themes including female sexuality and femininity, middle-class ...
, whose short story, "Lihaaf" (The Quilt), on a lesbian relationship between an upper-class Muslim woman and her maidservant created great controversy following its publication in 1942.
Examples include:
* Bohemia
** Franz Kafka
*** " A Hunger Artist" (1922)
*
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
Graciliano Ramos
Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira () (October 27, 1892 – March 20, 1953) was a Brazilian modernist writer, politician and journalist. He is known worldwide for his portrayal of the precarious situation of the poor inhabitants of the Brazilian ''sert� ...
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...
**
Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Sarah Spark (née Camberg; 1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006). was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.
Life
Muriel Camberg was born in the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh, the daughter of Bernard Camberg, an ...
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
**
Jaishankar Prasad
Jaishankar Prasad (30 January 1889 15 November 1937) was a prominent figure in modern Hindi literature as well as Hindi theatre. Prasad was his pen name. He was also known as Chhayavadi poet.
Poetic
Prasad started writing poetry with the pe ...
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
**
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
**
Mário de Sá-Carneiro
Mário de Sá-Carneiro (; May 19, 1890 – April 26, 1916) was a Portuguese poet and writer. He is one of the best known authors of the " Geração D'Orpheu", and is usually considered their greatest poet, after Fernando Pessoa.
Life
Már ...
**
Florbela Espanca
Florbela Espanca (; born , ) was a Portuguese poet. She is known for her passionate and feminist poetry. Fernando Pessoa later said she was his "twin soul".
Early life
Born Flor Bela d'Alma da Conceição on 8 December 1894 in Vila Viçosa, ...
**
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...
*
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the artistic range and amount of writers of short stories grew significantly. Due in part to frequent contributions from John O'Hara, ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' would demonstrate substantial influence as a weekly short story publication for more than half a century. Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery" (1948), elicited the strongest response in the magazine's history to that time. Other frequent contributors during the 1940s included John Steinbeck, Jean Stafford,
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...
, and John Cheever, who is best known for "The Swimmer" (1964), beautifully blending realism and surrealism.
Many other American short story writers greatly influenced the evolving form of the short story. For example,
J.D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in ''S ...
's ''Nine Stories'' (1953) experimented with point of view and voice, while
Flannery O'Connor's
Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
She was a Southern writer who often ...
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...
style. Cultural and social identity played a considerable role in much of the short fiction of the 1960s. Philip Roth and
Grace Paley
Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist.
Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and Na ...
cultivated distinctive Jewish-American voices.
Tillie Olsen
Tillie may refer to:
__NOTOC__ Places in the United States
* Tillie, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
* Tillie, Pennsylvania, a former populated place
* Tillie Creek, California
People
* Tillie (name), a given name and surname
Animal
* Tilli ...
Science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
stories with a special poetic touch was a genre developed with great popular success by
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...
. Stephen King published many science fiction short stories in men's magazines in the 1960s and after. King's interest is in the supernatural and macabre.
Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme (April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American short story writer and novelist known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the ''Houston Post'', was managing ...
and
John Barth
John Simmons Barth (; born May 27, 1930) is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include ''The Sot-Weed Factor'', a sa ...
produced works in the 1970s that demonstrate the rise of the postmodern short story. While traditionalism maintained a significant influence on the form of the short story, minimalism gained widespread influence in the 1980s, most notably in the work of
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s.
Early life
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mil ...
and
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story f ...
. Carver helped usher in an "extreme minimalist aesthetic" and expand the scope of the short story, as did
Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of ...
, through her idiosyncratic and laconic style.
The Argentine writer
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...
is one of the most famous writers of short stories in the
Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...
The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection ''El jardín de senderos que se bifurca ...
", published in the August 1948 issue of ''
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fict ...
''. Two of the most representative writers of the Magical realism genre are also widely known Argentinian short story writers
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares (; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fa ...
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureate author
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one ...
and the Uruguay writer Juan Carlos Onetti are other significant magical realist short story writers from the Hispanic world. In Brazil, writing about poverty and the
favelas
Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
João Guimarães Rosa
João Guimarães Rosa (; 27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer and diplomat.
Rosa only wrote one novel, '' Grande Sertão: Veredas'' (known in English as ''The Devil to Pay in the Backlands''), a revoluti ...
wrote short stories in the book ''Sagarana'' using a complex, experimental language based on tales of oral tradition.
The role of the bi-monthly magazine Desh (first published in 1933) is imperative in the development of the Bengali short story. Two of the most popular detective story writers of Bengali literature are
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (30 March 1899 – 22 September 1970) was an Indian Bengali-language writer. He was actively involved with Bengali cinema as well as Bollywood. The creator of the Bengali detective Byomkesh Bakshi, Sharadindu compos ...
(the creator of
Byomkesh Bakshi
Byomkesh Bakshi is an Indian-Bengali fictional detective created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. Referring to himself as a "truth-seeker" or Satyanweshi in the stories, Bakshi is known for his proficiency with observation, logical reasoning, and ...
Feluda
Feluda, or Prodosh Chandra Mitra itter'', is a fictional detective, Private investigator created by famous Indian director and writer Satyajit Ray. Feluda resides at 21 Rajani Sen Road, Ballygunge, Calcutta, West Bengal. Feluda first made his ap ...
José Eduardo Agualusa
José Eduardo Agualusa Alves da Cunha (born December 13, 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer of Portuguese and Brazilian descent. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he resides in the Island of Mozambiqu ...
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay (23 July 1898 – 14 September 1971) was an Indian novelist who wrote in the Bengali language. He wrote 65 novels, 53-story-books, 12 plays, 4 essay-books, 4 autobiographies, 2 travel stories and composed several songs. ...
Suchitra Bhattacharya
Suchitra Bhattacharya (10 January 1950 – 2015) was an Indian novelist, known for works including ''Hemanter Pakhi'', ''Kachher Manush'', ''Aleek Shukh'', ''Icche'' and ''Kacher Dewal''. During her career as a writer, she composed over 20 nove ...
Humayun Ahmed
Humayun Ahmed (; 13 November 1948 – 19 July 2012) was a Bangladeshi novelist, dramatist, screenwriter, filmmaker, songwriter, scholar, and professor. His breakthrough was his debut novel '' Nondito Noroke'' published in 1972. He wrote over 20 ...
*
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
Dalton Trevisan
Dalton Jérson Trevisan (born 14 June 1925) is a Brazilian author of short stories. He has been described as an "acclaimed short-story chronicler of lower-class mores and popular dramas." Trevisan won the 2012 Prémio Camões, the leading Portu ...
Hilda Hilst
Hilda Hilst (April 21, 1930 – February 4, 2004) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and playwright. She is lauded as one of the most important Portuguese-language authors of the twentieth century. Her work touches on the themes of mysticism, insanit ...
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
Bhisham Sahni
Bhisham Sahni (8 August 1915 – 11 July 2003) was an Indian writer, playwright in Hindi and an actor, most famous for his novel and television screenplay '' Tamas'' ("Darkness, Ignorance"), a powerful and passionate account of the Partition of ...
Nirmal Verma
Nirmal Verma (3 April 192925 October 2005) was a Hindi writer, novelist, activist and translator. He is credited as being one of the pioneers of the ''Nai Kahani'' (New Story) literary movement of Hindi literature, wherein his first collection ...
**
Kamleshwar (writer)
Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena (6 January 1932 – 27 January 2007), known mononymously as Kamleshwar, was a 20th-century Indian writer who wrote in Hindi. He also worked as a screenwriter for Indian films and television industry. Among his most ...
**
Mannu Bhandari
Mannu Bhandari Yadav (3 April 1931 – 15 November 2021) was an Indian author, screenplay writer, teacher, and playwright. Primarily known for her two Hindi novels, ''Aap Ka Bunty'' (''Your Bunty'') and ''Mahabhoj'' (''Feast''), Bhandari also ...
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
**
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winner of 1994),
**
Yukio Mishima
, born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
Mia Couto
António Emílio Leite Couto, better known as Mia Couto (born 5 July 1955), is a Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language, and the Neustadt International Prize for Liter ...
*
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = National seal
, national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
** Peter Solis Nery
***"Lirio" (1998)
***"Candido" (2007)
***"Donato Bugtot" (2011)
***"Si Padre Olan kag ang Dios" (2013)
*
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (6 November 1919 – 2 July 2004) was a Portuguese poet and writer. Her remains have been entombed in the National Pantheon since 2014.
Life and career
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was born on 6 November ...
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
**
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was Geo ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
21st-century short story writers run into the thousands. Female short story writers have seen increased critical attention, with British authors, in particular, exploring modern feminist politics in their writings.
Sales of short-story fiction are strong. In the UK, sales jumped 45% in 2017, driven by collections from international names such as Alice Munro, new writers to the genre such as Tom Hanks, and the revival of short story salons such as those held by the short fiction company Pin Drop Studio.
More than 690,000 short stories and anthologies were sold in the UK in 2017, generating £5.88 million, the genre's highest sales since 2010. Throughout the 2010s, a hypothetical "renaissance" was frequently speculated; Sam Baker deemed it the "perfect literary form for the 21st century".
In 2012, Pin Drop Studio launched a short story salon held regularly in London and other major cities. Short story writers who have appeared at the salon to read their short stories to a live audience include
Ben Okri
Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-British poet and novelist.Ben Okri" British Council, ...
,
Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver (born Margaret Ann Shriver; May 18, 1957) is an American author and journalist who lives in the United Kingdom. Her novel '' We Need to Talk About Kevin'' won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.
Early life and education
Shriver ...
A.L. Kennedy
Alison Louise Kennedy (born 22 October 1965) is a Scottish writer, academic and stand-up comedian. She writes novels, short stories and non-fiction, and is known for her dark tone and her blending of realism and fantasy. She contributes columns ...
Will Self
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Sel ...
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move f ...
,
Mavis Gallant
Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant, , née Young (11 August 1922 – 18 February 2014), was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays.
Pe ...
The Love of a Good Woman
''The Love of a Good Woman'' is a collection of short stories by Canadian writer Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1998.
The eight stories of this collection (one of which was originally published in '' Saturday Night''; five ot ...
Prominent short story awards such as The Sunday Times Short Story Award, the BBC National Short Story Award, the Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, The London Magazine Short Story Priz the Pin Drop Studio Short Story Award and many others, attract hundreds of entries each year. Published and non-published writers take part, sending their stories from around the world.
In 2013,
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move f ...
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature—her citation read "master of the contemporary short story." She said she hopes the award would bring readership for the short story, as well as recognize the short story on its own merit, rather than "something that people do before they write their first novel." Short stories have been cited with regard to other laureates as well, Paul Heyse in 1910 and
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one ...
in 1982.
Adaptations
Short stories are sometimes adapted for radio, TV and film:
*
Radio drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
The Shawshank Redemption
''The Shawshank Redemption'' is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella ''Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption''. It tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), w ...
A Sound of Thunder
"A Sound of Thunder" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published in ''Collier's'' magazine in the June 28, 1952, issue and later in Bradbury's collection '' The Golden Apples of the Sun'' in 1953.
P ...
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939) is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's stories, it first appeared in ''The New Yorker'' on March 18, 1939, and was first collected in his book '' My World and Welcome to It'' ( Ha ...
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is the third episode of the fifth season American television anthology series ''The Twilight Zone'', based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, first published in ''Alone by Night'' (1961). It origin ...
" (October 11, 1963, on ''The Twilight Zone''), " The Lottery", and " Button, Button" (on ''The Twilight Zone'').
Characteristics
As a concentrated, concise form of
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...
and descriptive prose fiction, the short story has been theorized through the traditional elements of
dramatic structure
Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and schola ...
: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation, and main characters), complication (the event that introduces the conflict), rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and his commitment to a course of action), climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point with the most action) and resolution (the point when the conflict is resolved). Because of their length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition, more typically beginning in the middle of the action ('' in medias res''). As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. In general, short stories feature endings which are either conclusive or open-ended. Ambiguity is a recurrent trope in short stories; by means of ending, characterisation or length. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by the creator.
Characteristic of short story authors, according to professor of English, Clare Hanson, was for them to be "losers and loners, exiles, women, blacks – writers who for one reason or another have not been part of the ruling “narrative” or epistemological/experiential framework of their society".
Conte cruel
The conte cruel is, as ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'' by Brian Stableford states, a "short-story genre that takes its name from an 1883 collection by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam", although previous examples had been provided by such writers as E ...
Flash fiction
Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature"); ...