Sometimes called “the intimate epic,” the novella is one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms, providing both the concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel. This course explores important short novels or novellas both classic and modern, with authors ranging from Brazil to Ireland, Japan, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Germany and upstate New York. These stories will feature a variety of situations and people, including, a penniless princess, a Christmas prisoner, and a monstrous insect, as well as fugitives, heroes, villains and desperate characters, demons (natural and supernatural), a superstar, a ghost town, and an Irish ghost. We will discuss these novellas within their historical, political, social and literary contexts as well as their growing relevance for the 21st Century. Readings: Ivan Turgenev, First Love; Kate Chopin,The Awakening; James Joyce, The Dead; Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis; Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo; Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star; Toni Morrison, A Mercy; Francoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse; Paula Fox, Desperate Characters; Justin Torres, We The Animals; Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left; Meiko Kawakami, Heaven; Jon Fosse, A Shining; Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These.