Although the short story has existed in various forms for centuries, it has particularly flourished during the last hundred years. Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English includes alphabetically-arranged entries for 50 English-language short story writers from around the world. Most of these writers have been active since 1960, and they reflect a wide range of experiences and perspectives in their works. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes biography, a review of existing criticism, a lengthier analysis of specific works, and a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The volume begins with a detailed introduction to the short story genre and concludes with an annotated bibliography of major works on short story theory.

    Chapter 1 Chinua Achebe, Charles Dameron; Chapter 2 Ama Ata Aidoo, Susan Rocfiette-Crawley; Chapter 3 Jessica Anderson, Selina Samuels; Chapter 4 Margaret Eleanor Atwood, Linda H. Straubel, Gayle Elliott; Chapter 5 Toni Cade Bambara, Carol Franko; Chapter 6 John Simmons Barth, Terry J. Martin; Chapter 7 Donald Barthelme, Jerome Klinkowitz; Chapter 8 Ann Beattie, Michael W. Young, Troy Thibodeaux; Chapter 9 Morley Callaghan, Grant Tracey; Chapter 10 Angela (Olive) Carter, Erica Benson; Chapter 11 Raymond Carver, Hilary Siebert; Chapter 12 Sandra Cisneros, L. M. Lewis; Chapter 13 Robert Coover, Wayne B. Stengel; Chapter 14 Anita Desai, Minoli Salgado; Chapter 15 (Karen) Louise Erdrich, Norma C. Wilson; Chapter 16 Richard Ford, Larry D. Griffin; Chapter 17 Janet Frame, Susan Rochette-Crawley; Chapter 18 Ernest J. Gaines, Mary Ellen Doyle; Chapter 19 Mavis Gallant, Michael Trussler; Chapter 20 Nadine Gordimer, Christine Loflin; Chapter 21 Patricia Grace, Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure; Chapter 22 Gish Jen, R. C. Feddersen; Chapter 23 Charles Richard Johnson, Scharron A. Shy-Clayton; Chapter 24 Elizabeth Jolley, Brian Dibble; Chapter 25 Jamaica Kincaid, Hermine Lee; Chapter 26 Maxine Hong Kingston, Jennie Wang; Chapter 27 Doris Lessing, Rick Oehling; Chapter 28 Bernard Malamud, Begoña Sío-Castiñeira; Chapter 29 Bobbie Ann Mason, Cheryl Roberts; Chapter 30 James Alan McPherson, Kurtzleben James; Chapter 31 Lorrie Moore, Robin Werner; Chapter 32 Bharati Mukherjee, Sherry Morton-Mollo; Chapter 33 Alice Munro, J. R. (Tim) Struthers; Chapter 34 R. K. Narayan, Britta Olinder; Chapter 35 Tim O’Brien, Brady Harrison; Chapter 36 Michael Ondaatje, Allan Weiss; Chapter 37 Cynthia Ozick, Allan Weiss; Chapter 38 Grace Paley, Ann Charters; Chapter 39 Velma Pollard, Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure; Chapter 40 Victor Sawdon Pritchett, Karen Tracey; Chapter 41 Jean Rhys, Paul Kotrodimos; Chapter 42 Salman Rushdie, Farhat Iftekharuddin; Chapter 43 Samuel Dickson Selvon, Hermine Lee; Chapter 44 Olive Senior, Mary Gravitt; Chapter 45 Leslie Marmon Silko, Neil Nakadate; Chapter 46 Amy Tan, Elias Ellefson; Chapter 47 William Trevor, Miriam Marty Clark;

    Biography

    Erin Fallon, R. C. Feddersen, James Kurtzleben, Maurice A. Lee, Susan Rochette-Crawley

    'Valuable to most literature instructors. This work is extremely important because of the popularity of the genre.' - Choice