Abstract

Despite the fact that the modern short story is frequently viewed in national terms (the American, Irish, South African short story, and so on), the genre evinces significant transnational tendencies. The modern short story cycle, the history and development of which is ineluctably tied to that of the short story, displays similarly wide-ranging features. In this paper, I discuss the distinction between ancient and modern cycles, and the latter’s pronounced association with regionalism and generic appropriateness to the representation of community or e pluribus unum. I then trace the broad trajectory of the South African short story cycle’s development from its earliest appearances in the late nineteenth century to the present, and attempt to account for the affinities with and divergences from broad trends elsewhere which local examples of this genre demonstrate.

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