The Following Story (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Cees Nooteboom
- First Published: 1991
- Type of Work: Novella
- Time of Work: The latter half of the twentieth century
- Setting: Lisbon, Amsterdam, and Brazil
- Principal Characters: Herman Mussert, Lisa d’India, Maria Zeinstra, Arend Herfst, Professor Deng
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Traveling or travelers, Magic or magicians, Marriage, Poetry or poets, Metaphysics, Nazism or Nazis, Biology or biologists
- Locales: Brazil, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Lisbon, Portugal
At one end of the fiction continuum is the short story, accorded new respect thanks to the influence of Donald Barthelme, the critical and commercial success of The Stories of John Cheever (1978), and the understated artistry of Raymond Carver. At the other end is the novel, for many reviewers and critics still the measure of a fiction writer’s stature. Then, at that more or less theoretical point where the short novel and the long story meet, there is the novella, also (pejoratively) known as the novelette. Given its relatively brief if venerable history—one that...
[The entire page is 1967 words long]
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