Literature precedes genre.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.
Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.
All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.
Genres do exist because frequent users of any large bookstore can instantly tell what any piece of fiction is supposed to be about by its title, its cover and its location in the shop.
I think the novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. The novel receives streams of science, philosophy, poetry and contains all of these; it's not simply telling a story.
A novelist's sense that he or she is 'above' a certain genre mainly comes out of the notion that the genre is somehow a debased version of his or her preferred form.
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.
In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature.
Literature is the question minus the answer.
Calling one thing 'literature' and another 'fiction' is a way to create status where there is none.