Resumen de Negotiations of genre in the short fiction of Alasdair Gray
This paper examines textual and paratextual markers of genre in three collections of short fiction by Alasdair Gray. Gray is well known for his lavish use of illustrations, which normally feature his own artwork, helping to add a rich dialogism to his text. However, his whole use of paratext such as prefaces, marginalia, tables of content, titles and subtitles, emblems and epigraphs, selfauthored blurbs etc. indicates an acute awareness on his part of how such paratext helps construct genre. Following Gerard Genette’s theory of the forms and functions of paratextuality, the article sketches out a contribution to the field of short story poetics, building on insights highlighted by Gray’s ludic practice.
