Shortest story

The shortest story is a form or genre of modern prose literature. It is very short prose of a maximum of two to three pages long, which combines certain features of other short prose types, such as the short story . Shortest stories in German-speaking countries emerged in their current form in the 1950s and 1960s, but were influenced by the prose miniatures of earlier authors, especially those of Robert Walser , Franz Kafka and Bertolt Brecht .

features

The genre of the most recent history is relatively heterogeneous; there is no characteristic that applies to every single text. However, the properties mentioned below occur frequently and are repeatedly combined in new ways.

A central feature of the shortest history is the literary design of seemingly insignificant - thematic as well as linguistic - details. However, unlike the short story , this does not necessarily mean that the individual case is generally applicable. Shortest stories are not always narrative ; because of the extreme brevity, the narrative thread can only be hinted at or not present at all. In these cases, it is more about reproducing a momentary impression or thought. The place, time and people of the action are often not precisely determinable, but only sketched or kept completely open.

The authors of short stories turned away from post-war literature, which tried to deal with war experiences in realistic writing. Instead, they develop a subjective, more psychological style, both in terms of perspective and in terms of the choice of fabrics and topics . Also satire , surreal and grotesque elements are processed; the lyrics are experimental. A greater awareness of the linguistic form arises, which brings about a greater proximity to the lyric .

Nayhauss explains that the emergence of subjectivist "snapshots" that do not go beyond themselves can be explained by the increasing isolation of postmodern people and the individuality of their understanding of the world. However, a generally applicable horizon of meaning is no longer perceived and can therefore not be designed artistically. The collection of small excerpts from life, which in their combination can open up new contexts of meaning, corresponds more to the present than the novel , which tries to depict a sensibly ordered world in its entirety.

Genera from which the shortest story developed

• Short story
• parabola
• Calendar history
• fable
• anecdote
• joke
• Features section

Eminent authors of the briefest stories

Important authors in German literature are Peter Bichsel , Heimito von Doderer , Helmut Heißenbüttel , Ror Wolf , Franz Hohler and Günter Kunert .

Hispanic literature has many authors of microrrelatos , such as Augusto Monterroso , Luis Felipe Lomeli, Alejandro Córdoba Sosa , Alfredo Alamo, Santiago Eximeno, and Jose Luis Zarate.

In Anglo-Saxon literature, Frederic Brown , Raymond Carver , Robert Coover, and Sean Hill are notable authors of Flash Fiction .

In France and in the francophone countries (Belgium and Canada) authors such as Jacques Fuentealba, Régis Jauffret , Vincent Bastin, Olivier Gechter and Laurent Berthiaume began to popularize the short stories ( micronouvelles ).

In Russia, Daniil Charms wrote the shortest avant-garde stories.

source

• Roberta Allen: Writing short short stories. Write short stories using the five-minute method . Authors' House, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86671-146-4 .

• Hans-Christoph Graf von Nayhauss (Ed.): Shortest stories . (Working texts for lessons, RUB 9569). Reclam, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-009569-0 .
• Christine Hummel (Ed.): Shortest stories . (Texts and materials for teaching, RUB 15064). Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-015064-1 .
• Irène Langlet, Les Echelles de bâti de la science-fiction , in Revue française de Fixxion contemporaine - Critical Review of Contemporary French Fixxion , n ° 1, Micro / Macro , 2011
• Cristina Alvarez, Nouveaux genres littéraires urbains - les nouvelles en trois lignes contemporaines au sein des micronouvelles. in Atas do Simpósio Internacional: Microcontos e outras microformas , Minho (Portugal) 2011, ISBN 978-972-8063-65-8
• Ottmar Ette (Ed.): Nanophilology. Short and short literary forms in Romania . (mimesis - Romanesque literatures of the world). Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-484-97065-6 .