This volume originated in the second conference on postcolonial short fiction organized in Nice by Jacqueline Bardolph. The scope has been subsequently enlarged to cover most geographical areas and make it more comprehensive, resulting in a total of thirty-five contributions analyzing a broad spectrum of stories. If theoretical approaches to this often undervalued yet multifaceted genre receive due attention, the essays closely scrutinize specific texts. Some of the writers discussed are exclusive practitioners of the short story (Mansfield, Munro), but others (Achebe, Armah, Atwood, Carely, Rushdie) are also well-known novelists, a duality of interest that allows stimulating comparisons between shorter and longer works by the same authors. The origin of the short story in orality is a topic frequently addressed by contributors, who comment in particular on the use of dialect and dance rhythms in Selvon and Mittelholzer, or on circularity and the trickster figure in Thomas King and Ken Saro-Wiwa. Alternatively, they assess the stance adopted by characters or implied authors towards their communities, a stance ranging from marginality (Janet Frame) through apparent rootlessness (Wilding, Gunesekera) to a more or less explicitly formulated sense of belonging (Marshall, Head). Correspondingly, in the case of a multicultural society such as South Africa, the changing political situation has rendered possible new ways of defining whiteness (Isaacson, Gordimer). The status of women (both white and black) emerges as another major theme, with an emphasis on their persistent marginalization. As for the confessional mode, favoured by a number of women writers, it assumes a new form with Janice Kulyk Keefer, who gives the reader the rare pleasure of discovering "Fox," her version of what she calls "displaced autobiography," or "creative non-fiction."

Table of Contents:
André VIOLA: Introduction Canada Marta DVORAK: Ernest Buckler. Canada’s “Another-Time-and-Space-Builder” Janice KULYK KEEFER: Limitations and Possibilities. On the Writing of Autobiographical Short Fictions Janice KULYK-KEEFER: Fox Françoise COUTURIER-STOREY: Subversive Corporeal Discourse in Margaret Atwood’s “The Female Body” Danielle SCHAUB: A Measure of Irony. Derision in Mavis Gallant’s From the Fifteenth District Mary CONDÉ: Voyage Towards an Ending. Alice Munro’s “Goodness and Mercy” Teresa GIBERT: Narrative Strategies in Thomas King’s Short Stories Rowland SMITH: “Rewriting the Frontier”. Wilderness and Social Code in the Fiction of Alice Munro Simone VAUTHIER: The Mirror and the Window. Jane Urquhart’s “Forbidden Dances” The West Indies Louis JAMES: Writing the Ballad. The Short Fiction of Samuel Selvon and Earl Lovelace Françoise CHARRAS: “Neither Fish Nor Fowl”. Paule Marshall’s Early Short Stories from a Caribbean Perspective Claude MAISONNAT: The Poetics of Death. “Tears of the Sea” by Olive Senior Frances WILLIAMS: Colonial Literature or Caribbean Orature? Creole Chips by Edgar Mittelholzer Thorunn LONSDALE: Literary Foremother. Jean Rhys’s “Sleep It Off Lady” and Two Jamaican Poems Southern Africa Zoë WICOMB: South African Short Fiction and Orality Sheila ROBERTS: “In the Cage of Consciousness” Margaret J. DAYMOND: “Nowhere Yet Everywhere” Johan U. JACOBS: Finding a Safe House of Fiction. Nadine Gordimer’s Jump and Other Stories Tim O. McLOUGHLIN: Women’s Short Fiction in Zimbabwe. Changing Times and Focus Clara TSABEDZE: Resuscitating the Tale in Black South African Writing. The Art of Narrative in Njabulo Ndebele’s Fools West Africa Derek WRIGHT: Developing Agency. The Later Stories of Ayi Kwei Armah Alain SÉVERAC: Achebe’s Short Stories. Their Intertextual Relationship to His Novels Jane WILKINSON: “Second-New”. Serialization and Circulation in Basi and Company by Ken Saro-Wiwa Christine MBONYINGINGO: Unanswered Questions, Unattended Quests. Ama Ata Aidoo’s Short Stories Christine FIOUPOU: Poetry as a “metaphorical guillotine” in the Works of Nisi Osundare India, Sri Lanka and the Diaspora Padmini MONGIA: Confession and Self-Making in the Fiction of Contemporary Indian Women Writers Martina GHOSH-SCHELLHORN: Transitional Identities. Indian Women’s Short Stories Cynthia CAREY-ABRIOUX: `Coming Unstuck’. Salman Rushdie’s Short Story “The Courter” Rocío G. DAVIS: Negotiating Place/Re-Creating Home. Short-Story Cycles by Naipaul, Mistry, and Vassanji Paula BURNETT: The Captives and the Lion’s Claw. Reading Romesh Gunesekera’s Monkfish Moon New Zealand Renata CASERTANO: Falling Away From the Centre. Centrifugal and Centripetal Dynamics in Janet Frame’s Short Fiction Mark WILLIAMS: “The Artificial and the Naturel”. The Development of Katherine Mansfield’s Prose Style Lydia WEVERS: Talking about GenX Australia Xavier PONS: Weird Tales. Peter Carey’s Short Stories William H. NEW: Henry Lawson’s “Hungerford” Peter O. STUMMER: The Uneasy Gaze of Secondary Hegemony. The Construction of Africa and New Guinea in Shaw and Shearston Dieter RIEMENSCHNEIDER: The Triangle of Art and Life. Michael Wilding, Story Writer Works Cited Christiane KEANE: The Postcolonial Short Story. A Bibliography of Anthologies Notes on Contributors