Contemporary literature

Contemporary literature is literature with its setting generally after World War II. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance.

History

This table lists literary movements by decade. It should not be assumed to be comprehensive.

See also

20th century in literature

See also: 20th century in poetry, 19th century in literature, 21st century in literature, list of years in literature.

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) 1900 through the 1990s.

In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite division, Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War II. The somewhat malleable term of contemporary literature is usually applied with a post-1960 cutoff point.

Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to Western literary history, the rise of globalization has allowed European literary ideas to spread into non-Western cultures fairly rapidly, so that Asian and African literatures can be included into these divisions with only minor qualifications. And in some ways, such as in Postcolonial literature, writers from non-Western cultures were on the forefront of literary development.

Contemporary Literature (journal)

Contemporary Literature is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal which publishes interviews with notable and developing authors, scholarly essays, and reviews of recent books critiquing the contemporary literature field. Genre coverage includes poetry, the novel, drama, creative nonfiction, and new media (including digital literature and the graphic narrative). The editor-in-chief is Thomas Schaub (University of Wisconsin-Madison). It was established in 196à as the Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, obtaining its current title in 1968.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed by: