Reflections on the concept of minifiction in relation to Hispanic and French-speaking literature

Abstract

This work has two parts and an appendix. In the first part, drawing on the etymology and on the discursive, formal and pragmatic features of minifiction and micro-narrative, the author analyzes the two concepts and explains why they cannot be taken as synonyms. In the second part, she reviews the three designations most used in the French-speaking field to name what the Hispanic world designates by microrrelato, namely: micronouvelle, microfiction and microrécit and, relying on the texts of Jacques Sternberg, Pierre Bettencourt, Georges Koleba, Jean-Paul Dubois and David Thomas, she briefly traces the trajectory of this discursive modality in French. The appendix brings together a handful of paradigm micro-narratives from these authors.