The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century

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. An introduction discusses theories of the short-story form and literary-aesthetic questions before surveying broad trends in the twenty-first-century German-language short-story. Six thematic chapters follow, offering an overview of key developments in the genre particular to the contemporary German-language context, examining performance and performativity, Berlin and crime stories, and engagement with earlier forms such as fairy tales, modernist short prose, and the novella. Seven author-focused chapters then represent the rich field of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and offer a variety of theoretical approaches to individual stories and collections. The volume concludes with two original translations exemplifying the breadth of contemporary German-language short-story writing. LYN MARVEN and ANDREW PLOWMAN are both Senior Lecturers in German at the University of Liverpool. KATE ROY is Adjunct Professor in Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Franklin University Switzerland.