Santino Prinzi, ‘Against Short Attention Spans: “Fragmentary” Fiction for “Fragmentary” Lives’, in Critical Insights: Flash Fiction, edited by Michael Cocchiarale and Scott D. Emmert, (Ipswich, Massachusetts: Grey House Publishing, 2017), pp.84-98.
This chapter argues against critics who claim that short stories and flash fiction are in anyway incomplete, and against claims that flash fiction is popular today because of shortened attention spans. By looking at flash fiction by Franz Kafka and Robert Walser, written before the internet, I argue that these short-short stories possess certain qualities that are appealing to readers today, hence flash fiction’s rise in popularity. Available to purchase on Amazon.
Santino Prinzi 