Nonfiction

Introduction

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood remains the most celebrated example of literary nonfiction

If you think about it, nonfiction could be almost any kind of writing. Dictionaries and encyclopedias? Nonfiction. Personal letters and journals? Nonfiction. Tax documents? Nonfiction (usually). This genre of writing encompasses both the extraordinary and the mundane in human experiences, and it dates back as far as history itself. As long as there have been means of communication, at least part of that communication has been devoted to material that was neither fictitious nor fantastic. Whether or not it predates fiction is a kind of chicken-versus-egg debate. While some writings, such as meeting notes, clearly reside in the realm of nonfiction, it is the blurry borderline between “real” and “imaginary” that often occupies much criticism of the genre. Readers, it seems, never tire of trying to define the elusive notion of what is “the truth” in a work.

Essential Facts

1. One of the most controversial examples of popular nonfiction is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. The author claimed he used the tools of fiction to create a new kind of nonfiction, but in doing so, he drew criticism regarding the accuracy of the events he depicted.
2. One of the biggest-selling subdivisions of nonfiction writing is educational publishing. Textbooks for secondary and higher education represent a huge (and sometimes controversial) portion of the nonfiction market.
3. Though a visual art, photography can be considered a form of nonfiction.
4. Literary criticism is a staple of nonfiction scholarly writing.
5. James Frey brought notoriety to one particular brand of nonfiction: the memoir. His book A Million Little Pieces (2003) was debunked as fraudulent and highly fictitious.