ABSTRACT
The Fiction of History sets out a number of themes in the relationship between history and fiction, emphasising the tensions and dilemmas created in this relationship and examining how various writers have dealt with these.
In the first part, two chapters discuss the philosophy behind the connection between fiction and history, whether history is fiction, and the distinction between the past and history. Part two goes on to discuss the relationship between history and literature using case studies such as Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens. Part three looks at television and film (as well as other media) through case studies such as the film Welcome to Sarajevo and Soviet and Australian films. Part four considers a particular theme that has prominence in both history and literature, postcolonial studies, focusing on the issues of fictions of nationhood and civilization and the historical novel in postcolonial contexts. Finally, the fifth section comprises two interviews with novelists Penelope Lively and Adam Thorpe and discusses the ways in which their works explore the nature of history itself.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|29 pages
Philosophy
part II|42 pages
Literature
chapter 3|17 pages
‘Fantastic concoction of the human brain'
part III|64 pages
Film
part IV|32 pages
Postcolonial studies
chapter 10|13 pages
Rewriting Algeria, past and present
chapter 11|17 pages
Temporal disjunction in the postcolonial historical novel
part V|27 pages
Interviews