Fiction

Daphne du Maurier is one of the most overlooked writers of the twentieth century, says Oxford University's Laura Varnam. As Rebecca celebrates its eightieth anniversary and du Maurier enjoys a critical renaissance, Varnam explores five works that best highlight this novelist's sheer range and brilliance-from biography and fiction to history and horror.

In America and Britain, fiction is said to be in decline. PW recently called attention to the 16% (or $830 million) decline in the sales of adult fiction reported by the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies during the 2013-2017 period. In Britain, the Publishers Association reports a slightly larger drop over a similar period.  Read more

In the publishing industry, adult non-fiction revenues are soaring above fiction revenues and have been widening the gap for the past five years. Adult non-fiction revenue totalled $6.18 billion across the publishing industry in 2017, while adult fiction revenues reached $4.3 billion, according to Penguin Random House, using data from Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies (AAP), the U.S.  Read more

A lifetime ago, it seems, I used to write fiction. I wrote little stories on scraps of paper as a young kid; throughout grade school, I filled my unused notebooks with attempts at novels; I wrote a few short stories in high school and college. But since I started freelancing full-time a decade ago, I haven't written a single line of fiction.

Authors have hit back at writer Will Self's assertion that the novel is "doomed to become a marginal cultural form".

Self's interview in the Guardian, published on Saturday (17th March), featured insights into his thoughts on the Iraq war, e-readers, the future of fiction and female writers.  Read more