The Lonely Voice (1962) is a study of the short story form, written by Frank O'Connor.
Within the study, O'Connor expounds on some of his own major theories of the short story as well as discusses the work of many influential short story writers. Each chapter focuses on a different author:
One of the work's major contributions is that of "the submerged population group" - a term that O'Connor uses to characterise those individuals who, for whatever reasons, are left on the fringes of society. [1] The term was taken up again in the twenty-first century by Amit Chaudhuri to usefully characterise modernist writing in the Indian subcontinent. [2]
The book is seen by many critics as the first lengthy examination of the short story form, and it has been heralded by many writers as an influential work. [3]
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native American tribes.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Although Irish has been used as a literary language for more than 1,500 years, and modern literature in Irish dates – as in most European languages – to the 16th century, modern Irish literature owes much of its popularity to the 19th century Gaelic Revival cultural movement. Writers in Irish have since produced some of the most interesting literature to come out of Ireland, supplemented by work produced in the language abroad.
The first Irish prose fiction, in the form of legendary stories, appeared in the Irish language as early as the seventh century, along with chronicles and lives of saints in Irish and Latin. Such fiction was an adaptation and elaboration of earlier oral material and was the work of a learned class who had acquired literacy with the coming of Latin Christianity. A number of these stories were still available in manuscripts of the late medieval period and even as late as the nineteenth century, though poetry was by that time the main literary vehicle of the Irish language.
Frank O'Connor was an Irish writer of over 150 works, best known for his short stories and memoirs. The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award is named in his honour.
Splatterpunk is a movement within horror fiction originating in the 1980s, distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence, countercultural alignment and "hyperintensive horror with no limits." The term was coined in 1986 by David J. Schow at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Splatterpunk is regarded as a revolt against the "traditional, meekly suggestive horror story". Splatterpunk has been defined as a "literary genre characterised by graphically described scenes of an extremely gory nature."
Seán Proinsias Ó Faoláin was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Irish culture. A short-story writer of international repute, he was also a leading commentator and critic.
Liam O'Flaherty was an Irish novelist and short-story writer, and one of the foremost socialist writers in the first part of the 20th century, writing about the common people's experience and from their perspective.
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
Urdu literature is literature in the Urdu language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal غزل and nazm نظم, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana افسانہ. Urdu literature is mostly popular in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language and India, where it is a recognized language. It is also widely understood in Afghanistan and has moderate amount of popularity in Bangladesh.
Literary fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre ; or, otherwise, refers to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered "serious" art.
Kallol refers to one of the most influential literary movements in Bengali literature, which can be placed approximately between 1923 and 1935. The name Kallol of the Kallol group derives from a magazine of the same name. Kallol was the main mouthpiece for a group of young writers starting their careers around that time including Premendra Mitra, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Buddhadeb Basu. A number of other magazines that followed Kallol can also be placed as part of the general movement. These include Uttara (1925), Pragati (1926), Kalikolom (1926), and Purbasha (1932).
Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, singer and music composer. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. He was Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia from 2006 to 2021, Since 2020, he has been at Ashoka University, India as Professor of Creative Writing and is also since 2021, Director of the Centre for the Creative and the Critical, Ashoka University. Awards for his fiction include the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Prize, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and the Indian government's Sahitya Akademi Award. He received the Rabindra Puraskar from the Government of West Bengal for his book On Tagore. He was also given the Sangeet Samman by the Government of West Bengal for his contribution to Hindustani classical music. He is an honorary fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.
Talbot Baines Reed was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the mid-20th century. Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper (B.O.P.), in which most of his fiction first appeared. Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent typefounder, and wrote a standard work on the subject: History of the Old English Letter Foundries.
Sukanta Chaudhuri is an Indian literary scholar, now Professor Emeritus at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata and the University of Oxford. He taught at Presidency College from January 1973 to December 1991 and at Jadavpur University thereafter till his retirement in June 2010. At Jadavpur, he was founding Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, a pioneering centre of digital humanities in India. His chief fields of study are the English and European Renaissance, translation, textual studies and digital humanities. He has held visiting appointments at many places including All Souls College, Oxford; St John's College, Cambridge; the School of Advanced Study, London; University of Alberta, University of Virginia; and Loyola University, Chicago. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Shakespeare Association. In July 2021, he was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
Literature broadly is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
The Irish short story has a distinctive place in the modern Irish literary tradition. Many of Ireland's best writers, both in English and Irish, have been practitioners of the genre.
Elena Genrikhovna Guro (Russian: Еле́на Ге́нриховна Гуро́, IPA: [jɪˈlʲɛnə ˈɡʲɛnrʲɪxəvnə ɡʊˈro]; in marriage Matyushina was a Russian Futurist painter, playwright, poet, and fiction writer. Her career spanned the transitional period between Russian Symbolism and Futurism.