The death of genre? Why writers are dismantling old labels

It used to be so simple. You wrote a crime novel, or a romance, or a dystopia. Bookshop shelves were helpful about such things: spine out, genre in. Literary fiction sat in its elegant corner, cool, aloof, unbothered by the commercial hustle elsewhere. Genre fiction was the grafter, busy, popular, and a little bit suspect.

But something is shifting. Writers are slipping past those borders, and readers are following them. In fact, they’re relishing the trespass. Literary novels are embracing dragons and time travel. Crime writers are reaching for unreliable narrators and experimental prose. Romance authors are crafting love stories that refuse tidy arcs. In 2025, the lines feel not so much blurred as beside the point.

So what’s really going on? And why are the walls around genre starting to fall?

Genres as ladders, not boxes

For decades, genre worked as publishing shorthand, useful for marketing, shelving, and guiding reader expectations. But it was never perfect. Now, authors are treating genre more as a toolkit than a prescription, borrowing tropes and textures to build something freer.

There’s also a generational shift. Today’s writers came of age reading across boundaries: binging fanfic that mixed sci‑fi and smut, devouring thrillers with literary ambition, and loving authors like Le Guin, Ishiguro, and Atwood who broke those rules long before it was fashionable.

Genre hasn’t died; it’s being dismantled and reassembled in ever more interesting ways.

Literary writers crossing genre lines

1. Emily St. John Mandel – Station Eleven combines post‑apocalyptic fiction with a quiet, elegiac tone.
2. Colson Whitehead – Moves from literary historical (The Underground Railroad) to con‑artist capers (Harlem Shuffle) without missing a beat.
3. Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and the Sun explores AI and humanity in ways that feel as much science fiction as meditation on grief.
4. Lauren Groff – Matrix plays with historical fiction and mysticism to bend time and myth.
5. Ali Smith – The Seasonal Quartet toys with structure, politics, and allegory in ways that defy neat packaging.

Genre writers embracing literary techniques

1. Tana French – The Dublin Murder Squad novels like In the Woods marry crime with psychological depth and lyrical prose.
2. R.F. Kuang – Babel fuses dark academia with the world‑building rigour of fantasy and the footnoted flair of postmodern fiction.
3. Silvia Moreno‑Garcia – Moves effortlessly between horror, noir, and historical fiction, always with a rich stylistic voice in Mexican Gothic. 
4. S.A. Chakraborty – The Daevabad Trilogy weaves fantasy, politics, and theology with serious thematic intent.
5. Grady Hendrix – Uses horror to satirise genre conventions while offering surprisingly tender emotional arcs in books like  The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Why it matters

In a time when attention is fractured and cultural gatekeeping feels outdated, this shift reflects a broader truth: readers want stories that surprise them. They crave richness, contradiction, and books that resist tidy metadata. Online discovery has also eroded the old categories—algorithms don’t care whether something is “literary” or “genre” so long as it resonates.

Genre hasn’t vanished. It’s evolved. And as authors continue to cross those boundaries, the result is a body of fiction that’s more porous, experimental, and alive.

Maybe we never needed those old shelves anyway.