Week 8 - Literary Journalism

I really admire the idea of literary journalism and its goal of seeking ‘underlying truth’. I can see that there is a need for a genre of writing that exists somewhere between fiction and journalism. At first it sounds incomprehensible that you could reach a greater truth by resorting to ‘fictional’ techniques but I think it satisfies our need to understand the world through narrative; I think we all understand reality by stories.

Literary Journalism, for all that it offers, obviously hasn’t become the be all and end all of reporting/writing. It has its problems – its particularly demanding on the author’s time and there remains a problem with the vagueness of its position between fiction and non-fiction. This leads to the question: is it trustworthy? Where does the non-fiction begin and fiction end? Is it enlightening or distorting actual events? Has the author’s level of engagement been so intense instead of informing it has narrowed the authors perception of events, leading to a conflict of interest? i.e. with Truman Capote’s novel.

Hopefully good Literary Journalism answers the above questions and provides us with greater insight into our world.