Exoticizing the Past in Contemporary Neo-Historical Fiction
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: Nov 27, 2014
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781137375193
Description: "This collection of essays is dedicated to examining the recent literary phenomenon of the 'neo-historical' novel, a sub-genre of contemporary historical fiction which deliberately and self-consciously re-imagines specific periods of history. The contributions reveal how, although set in the past, neo-historical fiction is very much aimed at answering the needs and preoccupations of the present, and discuss the extent to which, as a result, its representation of one historical period for consumption by another can at times rely on 'exoticizing' strategies. Yet, as the essays in this collection demonstrate, the neo-historical novel can also offer a powerful means of contesting the very exoticist drives it seems to perpetuate, through a process of historical re-appropriation and re-articulation which simultaneously brings to light and challenges persisting cultural misconceptions about the past"--