The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century

<b>Offers readings of key contemporary trends and themes in the vibrant genre of short-story writing in Germany Austria and Switzerland with attention to major practitioners and translations of two representative stories.</b><br><b></b><br><b></b><br><br>Since the 1990s the short story has re-emerged in the German-speaking world as a vibrant literary genre serving as a medium for both literary experimentation and popular forms. Authors like Judith Hermann and Peter Stamm have had a significant impact on German-language literary culture and in translation on literary culture in the UK and USA. This volume analyzes German-language short-story writing in the twenty-first century aiming to establish a framework for further research into individual authors as well as key themes and formal concerns.<br> An introduction discusses theories of the short-story form and literary-aesthetic questions. A combination of thematic and author-focused chapters then discuss key developments in the contemporary German-language context examining performance and performativity Berlin and crime stories and the openendness fragmentation liminality and formal experimentations that characterize short stories in the twenty-first century. Together the chapters present the rich field of short-story writing in Germany Austria and Switzerland offering a variety of theoretical approaches to individual stories and collections as well as exploring connections with storytelling modernist short prose and the novella. The volume concludes with a survey of broad trends and three original translations exemplifying the breadth of contemporary German-language short-story writing.