Dawn of a new literary genre

The beginning of the late 20th century witnessed the emergence of new genres which were hitherto unknown in the english literary sphere. When Joseph Conrad penned ‘Heart of Darkness’ which was neither a novel nor a short story, it triggered off the birth of a new genre, Novella. Though, the form had its beginning in the 14 Century Italian Literature through Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’, it was unknown to english until it was unveiled by Conrad. Even the 21 Century is not an exception to experiment with new genres and the present new form of literature is Small short stories!
“When I awoke, it was still there …!,” “When the last person of the world sitting inside a room somebody knocked on the door.” Do not mistake these lines for those scanty and dubiety SMS’s, but these are some of the small short stories which are considered as a new genre in these days. Like it was discussed earlier, the practise of writing small short stories is not new to we the Indians. There are quite a few small short stories in ‘Panchatantra’ and ‘Kathasarithsagara’. But the form was left abrupt, and the same has resurfaced today initiating debate over its form and content.
The genre of small short stories made news at the global level when Urwing Ho, renowned US critic and writer came out with small short story collection ‘Short Shorts’. Ho defined for the first time, the structure, narrative, characterisation and features of small short stories in his forward. As far as Kannada literature is considered, the form of small short story writing was practised since many days. ‘Hanigathe’, ‘Cardkathe’, ‘Laghukathe’ were some of the names under which they were written. Srinivas Havanur was the first person in Kannada to flash light upon this subversive genre and he sighted G P Rajarathnam, the first to write ‘small short stories’ in Kannada.
Commenting on the form and content of these small short stories, noted writer and translator S Diwakar says, ” there is no doubt that small short stories are smaller than short stories and adopts a special kind of narrative strategy to describe the entire experience and thus donning the role of a fable.” Ho in his forward wrote,” Short small stories can be within 2,500 words narrating the entire event or life of a character.” However he restrains his idea as suggestion. Some of the short stories that we discussed above, had less than 50 words.
These small short stories differ from novel or short stories in the dimension that Aristotle called ‘magnitude’. Generally a short story lack complex plot and instead involves simple plot. But it is not mandatory for small short stories to have neither of them. Instead, the form relies on any established anecdotes or myths for its success. Through its special narrative, the writer explains only the reflections of one important life incident rather than portraying life’s experience as a whole. And the stress is given to the present crisis of the character. In doing so, these stories take up the role of emotional tranquillity and resembles a small lamp brightening a vast dark room .
Owing to its features, certainly it is difficult to write all the times. Hence very few have written in this form in Kannada. “Litterateurs such as T N Srikanthaiah, Da Ra Bendre,Devudu, Shanthinatha Desai and Yeshwantha chittala wrote few such stories. But people are unaware of them,” explains Diwakar who translated such stories from different languages into Kannada. Some of the newspapers and periodicals such as ‘Sankramana’ published these stories. Few publications also published collection of translated stories like ‘Jagattina Ati Sanna Kathegalu’ edited by S Diwakar. Efforts are underway to bring out all the kannada small short stories under the title ‘Kannadada Ati Sanna Kathegalu.’