What even is literary fiction?

This post prompted a great discussion, which is pleasingly typical of The Orangutan Librarian. The moment I read the title an image of Drax from the Avengers movie popped in my head demanding, “Why is literary fiction?” Lol.

the orang-utan librarian

Ahh isn’t this just the perennial question? Every time I have conversations about literary fiction, it seems to me no one can quite decide what it is or what it should be or how to define it. And if you try to get a definitive answer, you’re going to have a hard time pinning it down. Google it and you’ll find tons of opinions. Go on Goodreads and you’ll find a plethora of books described as literary fiction (…some of which probably aren’t, but we’ll get to that).

What got me thinking about this recently was watching a video by Alexa Donne pitting literary fiction against commercial fiction, which was an interesting point… but not one I entirely agree with. Because I’d say the whole point of calling something literary fiction is to place it in a specific marketing category. And if it doesn’t have broad appeal, that’s not…

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