Context

In their extreme compression, the fictions of Diane Williams draw on a tradition of short prose forms that runs from the prose poetry of Baudelaire, Mallarme, and Rimbaud through Samuel Beckett’s late work in French to the writings of contemporaries like Lydia Davis and Russell Edson. Williams’s stories take place on the surface of language, as much as in the structural elements (plot and character) that support it. In many ways, her prose recalls that of Gertrude Stein, whose influence may be sensed in one way or another in much exciting new writing today. It’s less radical than Stein’s most influential work, but then Stein manages to escape genre entirely, whereas Williams offers her writings—this is important—as short fiction. In its contemporary context, Williams’s work is quite radical: it’s neither the inspired mismanagement of “ordinary” stories, nor the total relinquishment of story found in a prose poem, but something in between, partaking of both.

CONTEXT is a triquarterly publication intended to create an international and historical context in which to read modern and contemporary literature. Its goal is to encourage the development of a literary community.

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