Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon Manshel Alexander
Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon Manshel Alexander Contemporary fiction has never been less contemporary. This shift is particularly dramatic for writers…
Specifikacia Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon Manshel Alexander
Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon Manshel Alexander
Contemporary fiction has never been less contemporary. This shift is particularly dramatic for writers of color. Midcentury writers tended to set their works in their own moment, but for the last several decades critical acclaim and attention have fixated on historical fiction.
Alexander Manshel investigates the most celebrated historical genres--contemporary narratives of slavery, the World War II novel, the multigenerational family saga, immigrant fiction, and the novel of recent history--alongside the literary and academic institutions that have Even as the literary canon has become more diverse, cultural institutions have celebrated Black, Asian American, Latinx, and Indigenous novelists almost exclusively for their historical fiction.Writing Backwards explores what the dominance of historical fiction in the contemporary canon reveals about American literary culture.