Call for Papers Issue 11 (February 2025)

The Irish Short Story in the 20^th and 21^st centuries

 

 

Guest editor: Dr Laura Izarra (Universidad de São Paulo)

 

Ireland has gone through numerous changes in the last century, gaining increased relevance in the global scenario in terms of country borders, geopolitical realignments, economic transformations, and social ethnoscapes, within the present world context of social anxiety, violence, and fear. Literary texts grasp at feelings and sensibilities as well as at the relation of reason to modes of moral thought of their times through imagination. The short story is the art of focusing a fragment of life. In times of war and social instabilities, the ethical role of the short story resonates in William Trevor’s words —the empathies in the sharing of a short story are valued for their possibilities of hope and healing. Moreover, according to Julio Cortázar, the short story is “a live synthesis as well as a synthesis of life, something like the shimmering water in a glass, the fleeting within the permanent.”

 

In the history of Irish literature, many writers have defined the art of writing short fiction: James Joyce, Seán O’Faolain, Frank O’Connor, William Trevor, Elizabeth Bowen, Mary Lavin, and Anne Enright, among others. O’Connor refers to the short story as a fragment of life that reveals an “intense awareness of human loneliness”; it portrays the “outlawed figure” that wanders in the fringes of society, “the submerged population” that is not submerged by material considerations as “it can also be submerged by the absence of spiritual ones,” of living in a society that offers no goals and has no answers. In the 21^st century, Irish women writers have conferred the short story with a new vitality through experimentation with narrative strategies and an expansion of thematic scope. Anne Enright, Claire Keegan, Emma Donoghue, Jan Carson, Sally Rooney, or Melatu Uche Okorie are evidence of the multifarious mosaic of story-writing in Ireland today.

 

The thematic section of issue 11 of Nuevas Poligrafias will focus on the Irish short story of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, it also seeks to build a bridge between Ireland and Latin America in the art of telling and reading stories. Many Latin American authors have delved into short story writing and have frequently done so as both critics and practitioners. This legacy comprises varied literary landscapes and collections by famous artists such as Horacio Quiroga, Juan Rulfo, Inés Arredondo, and Clarice Lispector. In the contemporary scene, Samantha Schweblin and Mariana Enriquez are some of the leading figures when it comes to renewal and storytelling.

 

Contributions that discuss short stories by writers from the last 124 years either born in Ireland (living in the country or abroad) or who adopted Ireland as their home are welcome. Comparative analysis of Irish short story writers with Latin American peers are also encouraged so that the crossing of the bridge will be in both directions. Some of the suggested themes are the following:

 

• Irish short-story anthologies in the 21^st century
• Representations of Ireland as a multiethnic society in the contemporary short story
• Non-fiction by Irish writers on the art of short story writing
• The metanarrative arena: the discussion of the art of short-story writing in Irish short stories
• Irish short-story writers in the diaspora
• Elizabeth Bowen, Maeve Brennan, and/or Edna O’Brien: Legacies in short story writing by women
• Short-story collections by Irish women writers in the 21^st century
• Comparative approaches to Irish and Latin American short stories
• Non-fiction in dialogue: Irish and Latin American writers on the art of short story writing
• Cityscapes: Urban life in the Irish and Latin American short-story
• The translation of Irish short stories in Latin America

 

All contributions must adhere to the general requirements and editorial guidelines established by the journal, and they should be submitted through the editorial manager of the journal’s website. Although we receive contributions all year round, the deadline for papers to be included in the 11th issue is 15 August 2024. The publication of issue 11 of the journal is scheduled for February 2025.

 

 

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