"This volume focuses on historical fiction written by and for women, approximately, in the last 30 years and across the entire globe. It comprises three parts. The first one draws on the theme of the inner life and experiences of the female historical figure, the second one is concerned with genre-bending that fuels the construction of the vast majority of story worlds within the genre, and the third one with the idea of unusual angles that the historical fiction storytelling employs"-- Provided by publisher.
This volume focuses on historical fiction written by and for women, approximately, in the last 30 years and across the entire globe. It comprises three parts. The first one draws on the theme of the inner life and experiences of the female historical figure, the second one is concerned with genre-bending that fuels the construction of the vast majority of story worlds within the genre, and the third one with the idea of unusual angles that the historical fiction storytelling employs
This volume focuses on global historical fiction written by and for women, approximately, in the last 30 years. Its key themes include the inner life and experiences of the female historical figure, genre-bending in historical fiction story worlds, and unusual angles that the historical fiction storytelling employs.
List of Contributors
Introduction: The Golden Age of Historical Fiction: Womens Fictionalizations
of the Historical Past from a Global Perspective
Alicja Bemben and Michael Joseph
Part I. 21st-Century Heroines
Chapter
1. Representation of the First Turkish Woman Dramatists Life on the
Stage: Bilgesu Erenuss The Stigmatised Coffin (Yaftali Tabut)
Gülen Sayin
Chapter
2. Bad Faith and Existential Authenticity in Joanne Josephs Children
of Sugarcane
Alicja Bemben
Chapter
3. Who Holds the Power? Gendered Experiences of Greatness in Shelley
Parker-Chans She Who Became the Sun
Aleksandra Mzyk
Chapter
4. Feminism Meets Enterprise: Gentleman Jacks Anne Lister and Her
Dual Legacy?
Paulina Haca
Part II. Genre Experiments and the Social Change
Chapter
5. Story Writing and Ghost Summoning in Ghada al-Sammans The
Impossible Story and Farewell, Damascus
Zaina Ujayli
Chapter
6. On the Fringes of Realism. Bizarre World in the Recent Polish
Historical Fiction
Dariusz Piechota
Chapter
7. American Poison: The Buccaneers (2023) and the Open-Ended
Potential of Historical Romance
Maria Ogórek
Part III. (En)Gendering and Sexualising the Past
Chapter
8. Bring Up the Bodies: Hilary Mantels Romancing of History
Tiziana Ingravallo
Chapter
9. The WoMen of Troy: The Reflection of Lautre Bisexualité in Pat
Barkers Historical Novel, The Women of Troy
Merve Altin
Chapter
10. Fingersmith and the Pornography of the Past that Never Was
Justyna Jajszczok
Index
Alicja Bemben is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of English, the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. She is a co-organiser of various academic conferences and events, has co-edited several monographs, and authored a number of texts dealing with historiography (especially in the vein of Hayden White), historical novels (especially by Robert Graves), and their relationships. She cooperates with several journals, is a member of a few societies and research groups, and has coordinated a number of scientific projects.
Michael Joseph retired as Rare Books Librarian and Full Professor, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He is the author of The Teaching Guide to the Norton Anthology of Childrens Literature (2005), over 65 scholarly texts (articles, book chapters, reviews, etc.) and various novels, books of short stories, and poetry. He is an editor of Handmade Literacies: Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn, and the Founding Director of the New Jersey Book Arts Symposium. His recent publications include Making Video Poems from Poems Made from Diary Entries Made from Dreams in Book 2.0 (2025, 12 (12)), Omni-Puss in Boots (2025), The Marvelous Real in a Land of Dreams (2024), and Childrens Poetry in The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature (2023). In 2023, he was asked to participate in a discussion of contemporary childrens poetry, which appears as chapter 29, Contemporary Childrens Poetry: A Colloquy in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry (2023). Since 2016, he has been the Editor of The Robert Graves Review (formerly Gravesiana).