Professor Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz taught English and American literature and cultural studies as a senior lecturer in the English Department at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, until 2011. Her research interests are mainly in the fields of early modern literature, especially Shakespeare, and contemporary fiction.

• Introduction: The Cultural Context of the Failure Theme inFiction, and the Purpose of this Study I. Human Failure Narrative Identity and Failure in Short Fiction Failure in the Novel: A Small Tale, Generally of Love The Trivial, and the Novel as ‘a Small Tale’ Personal Failure and the Political (I): Irish Fictions Failure and the Observance of the Ordinary Personal and the Political (II): Postcolonial Results: Failure, Identity, and the Ordinary Transitional Section: Failing Aspirations of Humanism II. Failure and the Artist The Failing Artist in a Short Story Cycle The Fictional Artist and His Failing in the Novel Intermediate Results Partial Failure: Divergence of Art and Life Failure and Triumph of the Fictional Artist in the Novel: A Paradox Irony and Black Humour: Artistic Failure vs. Celebrity Success and Failure in 21st-Century Biofictions Conclusion