Literary fiction

Literary fiction may involve a concern with social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition.[9] This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern.[10] It may have a slower pace than popular fiction.[11] 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."[12] Other works may be more concerned with style and complexity of the writing: Saricks describes literary fiction as "elegantly written, lyrical, and ... layered".[13]

As opposed to genre fiction, literary fiction refers to the realistic fiction of human character, or more broadly, "all serious prose fiction outside the market genres", the genres being for example science fiction, fantasy, thrillers or Westerns.[8] Jeff Prucher defined mainstream literature as "realistic literature... that does not belong to a marketing category (especially science fiction, fantasy or horror)".[4]

In the context of science fiction, Brian Stableford defined literary fiction as "a tradition that had been and remained stubbornly indifferent to, if not proudly ignorant of, the progress of science".[14] James E. Gunn wrote that "The SF community uses the word mainstream to describe the fiction that is getting the attention they want; the word is a confession that SF is felt to be a sidestream, a tributary.[5]

Gunn also noted the difference between commercial and literary mainstreams, with the former meaning authors whose works are popular – high-selling bestsellers – and the latter, works seen as "art". He also noted that there is a contradiction between these, as "high sales figures are generally taken to mean the author has sold out" and 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 framed by fiction of the early 20th century and classic canon made from works of authors such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce or Henry James (all from European descent).[5]

Literary fiction includes classic books: that is works in any discipline that have been accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy. This includes being listed in a list of great books. The terms "classic book" and "Western canon" are closely related concepts, but they are not necessarily synonymous. A "canon" refers to a list of books considered to be "essential" and is presented in a variety of ways. It can be published as a collection, such as Great Books of the Western World, Modern Library, or Penguin Classics, or presented as a list by an academic such as Harold Bloom'[15] or be the official reading list of an institution of higher learning.[16]

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.[17]

However, Ben Bova, remarking on the distinction between genre and non-genre works, noted 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 the genre of literary, mainstream fiction.[18]

Literary fiction can be considered an example of "high culture" and contrasted with "popular culture" and "mass culture".[19]

The poet and critic Matthew Arnold defined "culture", in Culture and Anarchy (1869), as "the disinterested endeavour after man's perfection" pursued, obtained, and achieved by effort to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world".[20] Such a literary definition of high culture also includes philosophy. The philosophy of aesthetics proposed high culture as a force for moral and political good.

Since 1901 the Nobel Prize in Literature has frequently been awarded to the 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.[21][22] Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole.

The International Booker Prize is a similar British award given for outstanding literary fiction translated into English. This complements the earlier Booker Prize, which is awarded to fiction in the English language. For both judges are selected from amongst 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.[23] 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 honouring a writer."[24]