A Stalker’s Notebook: Updating Genre Labels
Genre labels are a tricky subject. On one hand, yes, it’s a helpful tool for readers and booksellers, whether you’re in a bookstore or a library. It helps categorize and classify books. On the other end, it also sets limits as to what kind of audience a particular book or author should garner. For example, if we put Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch in the Mystery section, people stop assuming that it could be Science Fiction or Fantasy or Horror. The elephant in the room is the genre labeled as Fiction, as if all other genres weren’t actually fiction. But the misnomer of Fiction is that it’s really Realism, another genre with its own set of tropes. Perhaps there’s too much emphasis placed on its importance, as if every other genre does not have value. So it’s not surprising if some people view genre labels as an abhorrent creature, a necessary but clunky tool used to communicate with casual readers.
Михаил Булгаков, Павел Грушко, Александр Градский
Лиза Джейн Смит
Ирина Баздырева
Ирина Баздырева