By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What are the best short stories which are set in school, or which focus on school and one’s schooldays? There are plenty of stories which are ‘set in schools’ in the sense of being set reading for schoolchildren, but it’s harder to find some canonical and classic short stories which are about schooldays.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Postmodernism came to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century. As the name suggests, postmodernism developed out of modernism: it came after modernism, both in the sense that it chronologically followed it, and in the sense of extending, and to some extent critiquing, the aims and attitudes of modernism.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Breakfast’ is a short story by John Steinbeck (1902-68), the shortest piece to be included in his collection The Long Valley. The story first appeared in The Pacific Weekly in 1936 before being reprinted in The Long Valley two years later. Although it’s often classified as a short story, ‘Breakfast’ had its origins in notes Steinbeck made while working on his novel, The Grapes of Wrath.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Ebony Horse’ is one of the most exciting and enchanting story from the Arabian Nights, also known as the One Thousand and One Nights. Indeed, the tale is interesting because it even borders on being ‘science fiction’ before the genre existed. It sees a cunning inventor design an ebony horse which is capable of flying. A prince uses the horse to travel to other lands, where he falls in love with a princess.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Fiction often deals with domestic matters, including family, and some of the finest short stories treat the important, though sometimes fraught, relationship between parents and their children. What makes a good parent? What if two parents disagree over what’s best for their children, or for the family as a whole?