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Is there a difference with cinematographic fiction?

"Literary fiction" might sound redundant, but in fact it's jargon used by critics, usually to describe a certain range of writing styles in which all of the implied drama takes place in the characters' inner emotional states rather than anything explicitly described in the narration or dialogue. It's usually contrasted with "genre" fiction, I guess because they wanted a broader term than "pulp."

"Literary fiction" is frequently simply a means of elevating the prestige of certain writing, by indicating that it is by/for literary elites.

In this case, the authors contrasted "literary fiction" with nonfiction, "popular fiction" and nothing. The literary fiction samples were drawn from a PEN/O Henry prize 2012 winners' anthology and the US National book awards finalists. The examples of popular fiction consisted of a Danielle Steele novel, "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn, and know knows what, although one of the authors mentioned "...genre fiction like adventure, romance and thrillers."

Not much more in the abstract. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/377.abstract

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