The ways in which the real as subject matter, the true, objective and imaginative as unreality, and the stylisation of the world and deliberate artistic distance interact in contemporary Slovene and Macedonian short prose (particularly in the 1980s and 1990s) is examined through analysis of texts from some of the more high profile Slovene and Macedonian collections and anthologies such as A Time of Short Prose: An anthology of Slovene short stories (ed. Tomo Virk, Ljubljana: ŠOU, 1998)
and Secret Chamber: An anthology of 20th century Macedonian short narrative prose (Tajna odaja: antologija na makedonskiot raskaz na XX vek, ur. Katica K’ulavkova, Skopje: Tri 2000). A comparative literary analysis of these anthologies with regard to the interweaving of the imaginary and the real reveals more similarities than differences – in fact the ways in which such interweaving is achieved can be said to be universal.
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