Twenty-First-Century Appalachian Literature
Although Appalachia and its authors resist political definition and economic category, one can say that twenty-first century Appalachian writers attempt to define what changes and what endures in a rapidly globalizing world. As Pulitzer Prize finalist Maurice Manning has noted, at the core of Appalachian literature is a tension between an appreciation of the region and an “anxiety for legitimacy”; this observation reflects the challenges facing authors from a region still often seen as “other” by the broader American culture. Some contemporary Appalachian authors explore which traditions are worth preserving and which ones should fall by the wayside, while others consider how to preserve and expand their Appalachian identity, a process that they sometimes connect with preservation and innovation in literary style. In short, many twentieth-century Appalachian authors cultivate in their readers an appreciation of Appalachian perspectives from a self-aware otherness that is sometimes tradition tethered yet is willing to go far beyond received notions about the region.