: Re: What is Literary Fiction? I keep hearing about literary fiction, and how it is so much better than genre fiction. What exactly is literary fiction?

@Kristi637

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If it is bound in hardcover, reviewed in a respected publication, written by someone with an MFA in English, or assigned as required reading in a college course, it's literary fiction. Literary fiction is prestigious, and generally assumed to be read by a wealthier, more highly educated audience, as opposed to genre fiction, which is issued in mass market paperbacks, and is assumed to follow the formulaic conventions of a genre such as romance, science fiction, horror or mystery. Literary fiction is aimed at posterity, while genre fiction is disposable and interchangeable --at least in theory.

In practice, some of the best respected classics began life as genre fiction, while many celebrated or uncelebrated works of literary fiction are quickly forgotten. It's perhaps best to conceive it, therefore, as primarily a marketing designation, aimed at helping books reach their most receptive audience.

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