History
Very short fiction has roots going back to Aesop's Fables, and practitioners have included Saadi of Shiraz ("Gulistan of Sa'di"), Bolesław Prus, Anton Chekhov, O. Henry, Franz Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft, Yasunari Kawabata, Ernest Hemingway, Julio Cortázar, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Fredric Brown. Examples of Hemingway's pioneering of the form are the 18 very short pieces in his first short-story collection, In Our Time. It is disputed whether (to win a bet), as alleged, he also wrote the flash fiction "For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn".
Hispanic literature has many authors of micro-stories, including Augusto Monterroso (whose "El dinosaurio" is often credited as one of the shortest stories ever written), Luis Felipe Lomelí ("El Emigrante"), Alfredo Álamo, Santiago Eximeno and José Luis Zárate. In Spain authors of microrrelatos (very short fictions) have included Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Andrés Neuman, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, José Jiménez Lozano, Javier Tomeo, José María Merino, Juan José Millás, Felipe Benítez Reyes, Fernando Iwasaki, Pedro Ugarte y Óscar Esquivias.
Italo Calvino consciously searched for a short narrative form, drawing inspiration from Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares and finding that Monterroso's was "the most perfect he could find"; "El dinosaurio", in turn, possibly inspired his "The Dinosaurs".
In France and Francophone countries, micronouvelles have been popularized by authors such as Jacques Fuentealba, Vincent Bastin, Olivier Gechter, Stephane Bataillon and Laurent Berthiaume.
In German, authors of Kürzestgeschichten, influenced by brief narratives penned by Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka, have included Peter Bichsel, Heimito von Doderer, Günter Kunert and Helmut Heißenbüttel.
Read more about this topic: Flash Fiction
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