Offers readings of key contemporary trends and themes in the vibrant genre of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with attention to major practitioners and translations of two representative stories.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. A combination of thematic and author-focused chapters then discuss key developments in the contemporary German-language context, examining performance and performativity, Berlin and crime stories, and the openendness, fragmentation, liminality, and formal experimentations that characterize short stories in the twenty-first century. Together the chapters present the rich field of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, offering a variety of theoretical approaches to individual stories and collections, as well as exploring connections with storytelling, modernist short prose, and the novella. The volume concludes with a survey of broad trends, and three original translations exemplifying the breadth of contemporary German-language short-story writing.

List of IllustrationsNote on TranslationsIntroduction to the Contemporary Short Story in German - Andrew Plowman, Lyn Marven, and Kate RoyChapter 1: Berlin Shorts: The German Capital in the Short Story of the Twenty-First Century - Katharina GerstenbergerChapter 2: The German Crime Story in the Twenty-First Century - Todd HerzogChapter 3: Performance, Performativity, and the Contemporary German Kurzgeschichte - Emily SpiersChapter 4: Cramped Spaces, Creative Bottlenecks: Sudabeh Mohafez's das zehn-zeilen-buch and the Short-Short - Kate RoyChapter 5: Bodo Kirchhoff's Widerfahrnis: A Novelle for Our Time? - Helmut SchmitzChapter 6: The Liminal Space of the Short Story: Clemens Meyer's Die Nacht, die Lichter and Die stillen Trabanten - Gillian PyeChapter 7: Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann's Lettipark - Leonhard HerrmannChapter 8: Of Unhomed Subjects and Unsettled Voices: Alois Hotschnig's Die Kinder beruhigte das nicht - Heide KunzelmannChapter 9: Literary Development and Rewriting Spaces in the "Complete Stories": Peter Stamm's Der Lauf der Dinge - Andrew PlowmanChapter 10: On Disappearing: Reading Ulrike Almut Sandig with Sylvia Bovenschen - Heike Bartel and Elizabeth BoaChapter 11: Metamorphic Becomings: Yoko Tawada's Opium für Ovid: Ein Kopfkissenbuch von 22 Frauen - Áine McMurtryChapter 12: Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry - Rafaël Newman and Caroline WiedmerChapter 13: Rhizomatic Wanderings: The Writings of Gabriele Petricek - Margarete Lamb-FaffelbergerChapter 14: Trends and Issues in the Contemporary German-Language Short Story - Lyn MarvenAppendix: Contemporary German-Language Short Stories in TranslationSudabeh Mohafez, A Short-Short Selection - Translated by Kate RoyRoman Ehrlich, "Engineers of Time" - Translated by Lyn MarvenSaSa StaniSic, "The Factory" - Translated by Lyn MarvenBibliography of Primary TextsNotes on Contributors