ABSTRACT
Although not all fictions are literature, so much literature is fictional that fiction is a central concept in our literary practices and, therefore, an unavoidable topic for any philosophy of literature. Within our contemporary literary institution, the division between fiction and nonfiction is one of the broadest distinctions we draw and, though we may seem to be able almost effortlessly to sort the fictions from the nonfictions, rigorously spelling out the way to tell them apart ontologically has proven philosophically daunting.
