The American Short Story Since 1950

This introduction to the modern American short story offers a reappraisal and contextualisation of a critically underrated genre during a particularly rich period in its history. It offers new readings of important stories by key writers from Flannery O'Connor to Donald Bartheleme, from Raymond Carver to Jhumpa Lahiri, and from Grace Paley to George Saunders. These readings are related throughout to the various contexts in which stories are written and published, including creative writing schools, story-writing handbooks, mass market and 'little' magazines. The first three chapters are roughly chronological, covering the major trends (such as realism, fabulism and minimalism) in short fiction from the 1950s to 2000. The fourth deals with the short story cycle in that period. The conclusion brings the discussion up to date with a discussion of recent trends and stories published in the last few years. Key Features*explores a particularly rich period in the history of the short story*offers close-readings of important stories by major writers including Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor, John Updike, James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Rebecca Brown, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, Annie Proulx, Sandra Cisneros, Tim O'Brien and Sherman Alexie*explores various contexts in which stories are written and published, including creative writing schools, story-writing handbooks, mass market and 'little' magazines*considers the short story in relation to realism, metafiction and minimalism, and to other forms, including the novel, the novella, the prose poem and, more recently, hypertext

Kasia Boddy teaches in the English Department at University College London. She is the author of Boxing: A Cultural History (2008) and numerous articles on American literature, and the co-editor of three anthologies of short fiction.