Literary fiction

Some categories of literary fiction, such as historical fiction, magic realism, autobiographical novels, and encyclopedic novels, are frequently called genres without being considered genre fiction. Some authors are seen as writing literary equivalents or precursors to established genres while still maintaining the division between commercial and literary fiction. Examples include the literary romance of Jane Austen and the speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood. Some critics and genre authors have argued for even greater overlap between literary and commercial fiction, noting that major literary figures have used elements of popular genres—such as science fiction, crime fiction, and romance—to create works of literature. The slipstream genre is sometimes described as falling between genre fiction and non-genre fiction.

Characteristics

Definition

Literary fiction may involve a concern with social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition. This contrasts with genre fiction, where plot is the central concern. It may have a slower pace than popular fiction. As Terrence Rafferty notes, "Literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way." Other works may be more concerned with style and the complexity of the writing. Saricks describes literary fiction as "elegantly written, lyrical, and ... layered".

In contrast to genre fiction, literary fiction refers to realistic fiction focused on human character, or more broadly, to "all serious prose fiction outside the market genres". Examples of such genres include science fiction, fantasy, thrillers or Westerns. Jeff Prucher defined mainstream literature as "realistic literature... that does not belong to a marketing category (especially science fiction, fantasy or horror)".

James Gunn also noted the difference between commercial and literary mainstreams, with the former referring to authors whose works are popular bestsellers, and the latter to works seen as "art". He also noted a contradiction between the two categories, as "high sales figures are generally taken to mean the author has sold out" and has therefore left the literary mainstream. He further defined the literary mainstream as "dominated by the academic-literary community—university professors of literature; high-powered critics for prestige publications such as the New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and The New Yorker: and writers who take the first two groups seriously". According to Gunn, the field of literary fiction in the United States is significantly shaped by early 20th-century fiction and by the classic canon formed from works by authors such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Henry James.

Classic literature

Literary fiction includes classic books, which are works in any discipline that have been accepted as exemplary or noteworthy. This includes those listed in a list of great books.

Europe

In English literary studies, the terms "classic book" and "Western canon" are closely related but not synonymous. A canon refers to a list of books considered "essential" and can be presented in various ways. It may appear as a published collection, such as Great Books of the Western World, Modern Library, or Penguin Classics, as a list compiled by an academic such as Harold Bloom, or as an official reading list of a higher-education institution.

Robert M. Hutchins in his 1952 preface to the Great Books of the Western World declared:

Until lately the West has regarded it as self-evident that the road to education lay through great books. No man was educated unless he was acquainted with the masterpieces of his tradition. There never was very much doubt in anybody's mind about which the masterpieces were. They were the books that had endured and that the common voice of mankind called the finest creations, in writing, of the Western mind.

Ben Bova, commenting on the distinction between genre and non-genre works, argued that "the literature of the fantastic was the mainstream of world storytelling from the time writing began until the beginning of the seventeenth century," and that older classics have more in common with modern fantastical genre works than with contemporary literary mainstream fiction.

China

The Classic Chinese Novels are works of fiction noted for their immense impact on Chinese culture and literature.

High culture

Literary fiction can be considered an example of "high culture" and contrasted with "popular culture" and "mass culture".

The poet and critic Matthew Arnold defined "culture" in Culture and Anarchy (1869), as "the disinterested endeavor after man's perfection," pursued and achieved through the effort to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world." This literary conception of high culture also includes philosophy. The philosophy of aesthetics has proposed high culture as a force for moral and political good.

Literary merit

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has often been awarded to authors of literary fiction. This annual award is presented to a writer from any country who has, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction. Although individual works are sometimes cited as particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's entire body of work.

The International Booker Prize is a similar British award given for outstanding literary fiction translated into English. This complements the original Booker Prize, which is awarded to fiction written in English. For both prizes, judges are selected from leading literary critics, writers, academics, and public figures. The Booker judging process, and the very concept of a "best book" being chosen by a small number of literary insiders, is controversial for many. Author Amit Chaudhuri wrote: "The idea that a 'book of the year' can be assessed annually by a bunch of people – judges who have to read almost a book a day – is absurd, as is the idea that this is any way of honoring a writer."