The division of literary works into genres - or texts that deal with a particular subject, or a subject in a particular way - makes life easier for the person browsing in a bookshop. He or she can go directly to where their favorite kind of book is shelved, be it science fiction, gothic, romance, and so on. Many writers of genre fiction are immensely popular and successful, Stephen King and J. K. Rowling to name only two. But, for the most part, such writers aren't depicting the world we live in and are writing fantasies.
However, some genre writers, particularly writers of detective and police fiction, are unhappy about being categorized in this way. Genre fiction, they say, has come to be seen as inferior to what is called mainstream or literary fiction. In other words, detective fiction isn't taken seriously as literature, and yet crime novels do deal with the raw stuff of everyday life. They are, in fact, closer to the harsh reality of the modern world than most mainstream fiction.