Description
Book SynopsisHistorical Fiction Now brings together prominent authors, scholars, and critics of historical fiction to explore the genre''s character, fortunes, and potential in the twenty-first century. Gathering together the voices of novelists, critics, academics, and several authors writing across these categories, the volume explores the nature of reading, writing, and writing about historical fiction in the present moment while meditating on some of the myriad contexts of the genre. What inspires writers to choose particular moments, events, and personalities as the subjects of their fictional imaginings, and with what implications for their readers'' understanding of the present? How do contemporary scholars approach the making and reception of historical fiction, and how do these approaches resonate with writers'' own preoccupations in the process of invention? What might scholars of a genre with a long and complex history learn from its contemporary practitioners? Conversely, how do novelis
Table of ContentsBruce Holsinger: Introduction: Historical Fiction Now I. Inventions 1: George Saunders: Ghosts in a Graveyard 2: Sophie Coulombeau: Naming Names: Reflections on Referentiality in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall Trilogy 3: David Ebershoff: Looking for the Danish Girl 4: Michael Lackey: Using Versus Doing History in the Contemporary Biographical Novel II. Archives 5: Katherine Howe: Real Witches, Real Life 6: Tiya Miles: Gardens of Memory: Ghosts, Grounds, and the Archives 7: Geraldine Brooks: Pilgrim's Progress: Researching The Secret Chord 8: Namwali Serpell: The Afronaut Archives: Reports from a Future Zambia 9: Bruce Holsinger: Historical Fiction and the Fine Art of Error III. Genres 10: Gavin Jones: Historical Fiction, World-building, and the Short Story 11: Maaza Mengiste: War in a Woman's Voice 12: Mark Eaton: Alternate-history Novels and Other Counterfactual Fictions 13: Téa Obreht: Last Camp 14: Jessie Burton: Historical Impressionism and Signs of Life: The Blessing and Burden of Writing the Past 15: Jane Kamensky: Novelties: A Historian's Field Notes from Fiction 16: Naomi J. Williams: Sorting Fact from Fiction: A Novelist Researches the Lapérouse Expedition 17: Kirstin Chen: Am I Chinese Enough to Tell this Story? The late Hilary Mantel: Afterword: I Met a Man Who Wasn't There
