dirty realism

English

Etymology

Coined by Bill Buford of Granta magazine in 1983.

Noun

dirty realism (uncountable)

1. A North American literary movement that depicts seamy or mundane aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned language.
   • 2009 November 20, Stephen King, “Raymond Carver’s Life and Stories”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     It was Maryann Burk Carver who won the bread in those early years while Ray drank, fished, went to school and began writing the stories that a generation of critics and teachers would miscategorize as “minimalism” or “dirty realism.”