Present Tense Narration in Contemporary Fiction

In this book Irmtraud Huber considers a wide range of contemporary novels to explore the variety of possibilities and effects of the use of the present tense as well as investigating  the reasons for its popularity. By illustrating the complexity and sophistication of four different types of contemporary usage Huber’s discussion goes some way towards refuting those critical voices which consider present-tense narration a passing fad and stylistic affectation. As a tense of narration the present can serve to tell different stories than the past tense or can tell them differently. By no means a passing fad it is an important characteristic of contemporary literature.