Workliterature

Workliterature is a broad designation for literature that centers on work, labor, and the conditions of the workplace. It encompasses fiction, poetry, memoir, journalism, and documentary prose that explore how work shapes identity, economy, and society. While not a formal literary genre, workliterature is often studied as part of labor literature, industrial fiction, and social realism.

Historically, depictions of work appear in many traditions, but the modern focus intensified with industrialization in the 19th century, which highlighted factory labor, urban migration, and class tension. In the 20th century, authors of social realism, naturalism, and migrant narratives foregrounded exploited workers, organizing labor movements, and critiques of capitalism. In contemporary periods, service work, information economies, and global supply chains have broadened the field.

Common themes include alienation, exploitation, endurance, dignity, and the meaning of work beyond economic necessity; gendered labor, race and immigrant labor, and the ethics of management and automation. Forms range from realist novels and short stories to memoirs, diaries, investigative journalism, and corporate histories that illuminate daily routines, schedules, and workplace cultures.

Prominent examples include Germinal by Émile Zola, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and many migrant or factory-focused works. Nonfiction and reportage, such as factory inspectors' accounts, workers’ diaries, and investigative journalism, also constitute workliterature.

Scholarly study often situates workliterature within labor history, sociology of work, and postcolonial or feminist critique, examining questions of power, class, and identity. The term itself is flexible, reflecting shifts in how societies organize and value labor.