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, andSwitzerland, 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.BR> 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.

Lyn Marven, Andrew Plowman, Kate Roy

List of Illustrations
Note on Translations
Introduction to the Contemporary Short Story in German - Andrew Plowman, Lyn Marven, and Kate Roy
Chapter 1: Berlin Shorts: The German Capital in the Short Story of the Twenty-First Century - Katharina Gerstenberger
Chapter 2: The German Crime Story in the Twenty-First Century - Todd Herzog
Chapter 3: Performance, Performativity, and the Contemporary German Kurzgeschichte - Emily Spiers
Chapter 4: Cramped Spaces, Creative Bottlenecks: Sudabeh Mohafez's das zehn-zeilen-buch and the Short-Short - Kate Roy
Chapter 5: Bodo Kirchhoff's Widerfahrnis: A Novelle for Our Time? - Helmut Schmitz
Chapter 6: The Liminal Space of the Short Story: Clemens Meyer's Die Nacht, die Lichter and Die stillen Trabanten - Gillian Pye
Chapter 7: Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann's Lettipark - Leonhard Herrmann
Chapter 8: Of Unhomed Subjects and Unsettled Voices: Alois Hotschnig's Die Kinder beruhigte das nicht - Heide Kunzelmann
Chapter 9: Literary Development and Rewriting Spaces in the "Complete Stories": Peter Stamm's Der Lauf der Dinge - Andrew Plowman
Chapter 10: On Disappearing: Reading Ulrike Almut Sandig with Sylvia Bovenschen - Heike Bartel and Elizabeth Boa
Chapter 11: Metamorphic Becomings: Yoko Tawada's Opium für Ovid: Ein Kopfkissenbuch von 22 Frauen - Áine McMurtry
Chapter 12: Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry - Rafaël Newman and Caroline Wiedmer
Chapter 13: Rhizomatic Wanderings: The Writings of Gabriele Petricek - Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger
Chapter 14: Trends and Issues in the Contemporary German-Language Short Story - Lyn Marven
Appendix: Contemporary German-Language Short Stories in Translation
Sudabeh Mohafez, A Short-Short Selection - Translated by Kate Roy
Roman Ehrlich, "Engineers of Time" - Translated by Lyn Marven
Saša Staniši¿, "The Factory" - Translated by Lyn Marven
Bibliography of Primary Texts
Notes on Contributors