The Postcolonial Historical Novel: Realism, Allegory, and the Representation of Contested Pasts

by H. Dalley

Overview

The Postcolonial Historical Novel is the first systematic work to examine how the historical novel has been transformed by its appropriation in postcolonial writing. It proposes new ways to understand literary realism, and explores how the relationship between history and fiction plays out in contemporary African and Australasian writing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349496938
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/2014
Edition description:	1st ed. 2014
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Hamish Dalley is Assistant Professor of World Literature at Daemen College, Amherst, New York, USA. His research focuses on historical representation and literary form in various branches of postcolonial fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Note on the Text PART I: EPISTEMOLOGIES OF HISTORICAL REALISM 1. The Contemporary Postcolonial Historical Novel: Beyond Anti-Realism 2. Allegorical Realism: Toward a Poetics of the Postcolonial Historical Novel PART II: ALLEGORIES OF SETTLEMENT 3. Typification and Frontier Violence: Kate Grenville's The Secret River 4. The Gender of Settler Realism: Fiona Kidman's The Captive Wife PART III: NARRATING TRANSNATIONAL HISTORIES 5. Deterritorializing Allegorical Realism: Witi Ihimaera's The Trowenna Sea 6. Aesthetics of Absent Causality: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun PART IV: MELANCHOLY REALISMS 7. Spectres of Civil War Trauma: Chris Abani's Song for Night 8. Metafictional Realism and the Dialectic of Allegory: Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish 9. Conclusion: The Historical Novel, from Postcolonial Reconciliation to Environmental Crisis Bibliography Index