SOURCE: An introduction to Kneel to the Rising Sun, in Critical Essays on Erskine Caldwell, edited by Scott MacDonald, G. K. Hall & Co., 1981, pp. 227-28.

The following essay was first published as the introduction to a 1951 edition of Kneel to the Rising Sun. Caldwell here defends the short story form, arguing that "the most exciting and memorable happenings are usually brief and explosive" and therefore well suited to the compact structure of short stories.

The seventeen short stories in this volume [Kneel to the Rising Sun] probably would never have been written if, many years ago, I had accepted the advice that the novel was the only form of fiction worthy of major effort and that a young and ambitious writer would do well not to handicap himself by following a belief that short-story writing in the age of large-circulation magazines could produce anything of permanent value. The...