Dirty realism is a term coined by

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 ...

of ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

'' magazine to define a

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

literary movement Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...

. Writers in this sub-category of realism are said to depict the seamier or more

mundane In subcultural and fictional uses, a mundane is a person who does not belong to a particular group, according to the members of that group; the implication is that such persons, lacking imagination, are concerned solely with the mundane: the ...

aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned language.

Definition

The term formed the title of the Summer 1984 edition of ''

'', 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 to avoid

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...

s, extended

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

and

internal monologue Intrapersonal communication (also known as autocommunication or inner speech) is communication with oneself or self-to-self communication. Examples are thinking to oneself "I will do better next time" after having made a mistake or imagining a ...

, instead allowing objects and context to dictate meaning. Characters are shown in ordinary, unremarkable occupations, and often a lack of resources and money that creates an internal desperation. The 1969 film ''

Midnight Cowboy ''Midnight Cowboy'' is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, J ...

'' has been called dirty realism, with its bummed-out anti-heroes at the desperate edge of society. Michael Kaplan uses "dirty realism" in his 2021 article, "Dustin Hoffman was kicked out of Sardi's while in character for 'Midnight Cowboy'"

Notable authors

Modern scholarship preponderantly places at the heart of the movement the authors Buford mentions in his ''Granta'' 8 essay, including

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He published his first collection of stories, '' Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?'', in 1976. His breakout collection, '' What We Talk About ...

(1938–1988), Tobias Wolff (b. 1945),

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 ...

(b. 1944), Larry Brown (1951–2004),

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'' (formerl ...

(b. 1943),

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, agri ...

(b. 1950), Fernando Velázquez Medina (b. 1951), and Jayne Anne PhillipsJarvis, Brian
"How Dirty is Jayne Anne Phillips?"
Yearbook of English Studies, 2001 Annual. (b. 1952). These authors have rarely accepted or self-applied this term, despite close associations and affinities.

References

{{reflist

External links

Facebook group dedicated to Dirty Realism
American literary movements Literary realism 20th-century American literature 1980s neologisms Charles Bukowski

Definition

Style

Notable authors

See also

References

External links