Dirty Realism
Dirty realism is a term coined by Bill Buford of ''Granta'' magazine to define a North American literary movement. Writers in this sub-category of realism are said to depict the seamier or more mundane aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned language. Definition The term formed the title of the Summer 1984 edition of ''Granta'', for which Buford wrote an explanatory introduction: Dirty Realism is the fiction of a new generation of American authors. They write about the belly-side of contemporary life – a deserted husband, an unwanted mother, a car thief, a pickpocket, a drug addict – but they write about it with a disturbing detachment, at times verging on comedy. Understated, ironic, sometimes savage, but insistently compassionate, these stories constitute a new voice in fiction. Style Sometimes considered a variety of literary minimalism, dirty realism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Writers working within the genre tend ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bill Buford
William Holmes Buford (born 6 October 1954) is an American author and journalist. He is the author of the books '' Among the Thugs'' and ''Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany''. Buford was previously the fiction editor for ''The New Yorker'', where he is still on staff. For sixteen years, he was the editor of ''Granta'', which he relaunched in 1979. He is also credited with coining the term " dirty realism." Early years Buford was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and raised in Southern California, attending the University of California, Berkeley, from 1973 to 1977. He then received a Marshall Scholarship to read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in 1979. He remained in England for most of the 1980s. Work As an author '' Among the Thugs'' (1990) is presented as an insider's account of the world of (primarily) English football hooliganism. ''Heat'' (2006) is B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Ford
Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe. Ford's first collection of short stories, ''Rock Springs (short stories), Rock Springs'', was published in 1987. In the United States, Ford received the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize for his novel ''Independence Day (Ford novel), Independence Day''. In Spain, he won the Princess of Asturias Awards, Princess of Asturias Award for 2016. In 2018, Ford received the Park Kyong-ni Prize, an international literary award from South Korea. His novel Wildlife (novel), ''Wildlife'' was adapted into a Wildlife (film), 2018 film of the same name, and in 2023 Ford published ''Be Mine (novel), Be Mine'', his fifth work of fiction chronicling the life of Frank Bascombe. Early life Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi, the only son of Parker Carrol and Edna Ford. Parker was a traveling salesman for Faultless Starch/Bon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Literary Movements
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label that was previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Postmodernist Literature
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, and intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s.Linda Hutcheon (1988) ''A Poetics of Postmodernism.'' London: Routledge, pp. 202-203. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to. Precursors to postmodern literature include Miguel de Cervantes' ''Don Quixote'' (1605–1615), Laurence Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grunge Lit
Grunge lit (an abbreviation for "grunge literature") is an Australian literary genre usually applied to fictional or semi-autobiographical writing concerned with dissatisfied and disenfranchised young people living in suburban or inner-city surroundings, or in "in-between" spaces that fall into neither category (e.g., living in a mobile home or sleeping on a beach). It was typically written by "new, young authors"Leishman, Kirsty, 'Australian Grunge Literature and the Conflict between Literary Generations', ''Journal of Australian Studies'', 23.63 (1999), pp. 94–102 who examined "gritty, dirty, real existences", of lower-income young people, whose egocentric or narcissistic lives revolve around a nihilistic or "slacker" pursuit of casual sex, recreational drug use and alcohol, which are used to escape boredom. The marginalized characters are able to stay in these "in-between" settings and deal with their "abject bodies" (health problems, disease, etc.). Grunge lit has been descr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kmart Realism
Kmart realism, also termed "low-rent tragedies", is a form of minimalist literature found in American short fiction that became popular in the 1980s. Style These short stories "represent and reproduce the disintegration of public life ndthe colonization of private life by consumer capitalism". Background The precursors of Kmart realism include the so-called ''trailer park fiction'', ''Diet-Pepsi minimalism'', and ''hick chic''. Author Tao Lin described Kmart realism as being "at its “height” maybe in the mid to late-80’s. Frederick Barthelme had 20-30 stories published in the ''New Yorker'', Mary Robison also had many stories in the ''New Yorker'', and Gordon Lish was publishing other people’s books and stories as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf and ''Esquire'' around then." Criticism A related definition describes the genre as American fiction that is characterized, among other things, by a fascination with consumption venues and brand names. John Gardner, in critical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jayne Anne Phillips
Jayne Anne Phillips (born July 19, 1952) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. She is a former English professor at Rutgers-Newark from 2005 to 2020 and helped establish the MFA program at Rutgers University-Newark. Education Phillips graduated from West Virginia University, earning a B.A. in 1974, and later received an M.F.A. in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. Teaching Phillips has held teaching positions at several colleges and universities, including Harvard University, Williams College, Brandeis University, and Boston University. She is currently Professor of English and founder/director of the Rutgers University–Newark Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. In 2007, ''The Atlantic'' magazine named Phillips' MFA program at Rutgers–Newark to its list of "Five Up-and-Coming" creative writing programs in the United States. Writing caree ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
Pedro Juan Gutiérrez (born 27 January 1950, in Matanzas, Cuba) is a Cuban novelist. He grew up in Pinar del Río and began to work selling ice cream and newspapers when he was 11 years old. He was a soldier, swimming and kayak instructor, agricultural worker, technician in construction, technical designer, radio speaker, and journalist for 26 years. He is a painter, sculptor and author of several poetry books. He came to Centro Habana, a dilapidated part of the capital, when he was 37 and was astonished by the level of violence but also by the energy of the people who lived there. He is the author of ''Dirty Havana Trilogy'', ''King of Havana'', ''Tropical Animal'' (winner of Spain's Alfonso Garcia Ramos Prize in 2000), ''The Insatiable Spiderman'', ''Dog Meat'' (winner of Italy's Narrativa Sur del Mundo Prize), ''Snake's Nest'' (winner of the Prix des Amériques Insulaires et de la Guyane in 2008), ''Our GG in Havana'', and the short stories of ''Melancholy of Lions''. ''Di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frederick Barthelme
Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer of minimalist fiction. He is the director of the Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of ''New World Writing'' (formerly '' Blip Magazine'') Early life Barthelme was born in Houston, Texas. Life and work Barthelme was a founding member of the avant-garde experimental rock band the Red Krayola, and left the band to pursue writing and conceptual art in New York. His writing focuses on the landscape of the New South. Along with being a minimalist, his work has also been described as " dirty realism" and " Kmart realism". He published his first short story in ''The New Yorker.'' Barthelme was the editor of ''Mississippi Review'' for three years. He is the director of the Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of ''New World Writing'' (formerly '' Blip Magazine''). Personal life His brothers Donald Barthelme and Steven Bar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Larry Brown (author)
William Larry Brown (July 9, 1951 – November 24, 2004) was an American novelist, non-fiction, and short story writer. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. Brown was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction. His notable works include '' Dirty Work'', ''Joe'', '' Father and Son'', and ''Big Bad Love''. The last of these was adapted for a 2001 film of the same name, starring Debra Winger and Arliss Howard. In 2013 a film adaptation of '' Joe'' was released, featuring Nicolas Cage. Independent filmmaker Gary Hawkins, who wrote the screenplay for ''Joe'', has directed an award-winning documentary of Brown's life and work in ''The Rough South of Larry Brown'' (2002). Life and writing Larry Brown was born on July 9, 1951, and grew up near Oxford, Mississippi. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |