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A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. While there is some disagreement of what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000 or 60 to 130 pages.<ref>http://www.sfwa.org/awards/faq.htm Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Awards FAQ. (Accessed 2/21/07)</ref>

Although the novella is a common literary genre in several European languages, it is less common in English. English-speaking readers may be most familiar with the novellas of Franz Kafka, particularly The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Like the English word "novel", the English word "novella" derives from the Italian word "novella" (plural: "novelle"), for a tale, a piece of news. As the etymology suggests, novellas originally were news of town and country life worth repeating for amusement and edification.