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

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 The Postcolonial Historical Novel is the first systematic work to explore how the historical novel shapes understandings of the past in former colonies, and how it has been transformed by its appropriation in these settings. Focusing on contemporary writing from Africa and Australasia, this book challenges conventional understandings of literary realism. It shows how plausibility and verifiability are fundamental to fiction-writing in places where the past is contested, and suggests new ways for thinking about the relations between historical truth and creative imagination. By analyzing how this commitment to realism and plausibility functions differently in texts from Nigeria, Australia, and New Zealand, this book explores how the historical novel has been inflected by distinct postcolonial pressures. In particular, it outlines three key variations or subgenres: settler allegory (which reflects the ideological tensions implicit in much colonial writing), transnational realism (which emerges from authors' desires to explore processes of globalization in their fiction), and melancholy realism (in which the boundaries between past and present dissolve) Front Matter....Pages i-x Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Contemporary Postcolonial Historical Novel: Beyond Anti-Realism....Pages 3-12 Allegorical Realism: Toward a Poetics of the Postcolonial Historical Novel....Pages 13-41 Front Matter....Pages 43-43 Typification and Frontier Violence: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River ....Pages 45-69 The Gender of Settler Realism: Fiona Kidman’s The Captive Wife....Pages 70-94 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 Deterritorialising Allegorical Realism: Witi Ihimaera’s The Trowenna Sea ....Pages 97-120 Aesthetics of Absent Causality: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun ....Pages 121-146 Front Matter....Pages 147-147 Spectres of Civil War Trauma: Chris Abani’s Song for Night ....Pages 149-170 Metafictional Realism and the Dialectic of Allegory: Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish ....Pages 171-196 Conclusion: the Historical Novel, from Postcolonial Reconciliation to Environmental Crisis....Pages 197-203 Back Matter....Pages 205-226 Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 9 Note on the Text 11 Part I: Epistemologies of Historical Realism 12 1 The Contemporary Postcolonial Historical Novel: Beyond Anti-Realism 13 2 Allegorical Realism: Toward a Poetics of the Postcolonial Historical Novel 23 Part II: Allegories of Settlement 52 3 Typification and Frontier Violence: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River 53 4 The Gender of Settler Realism: Fiona Kidman’s The Captive Wife 78 Part III: Narrating Transnational Histories 103 5 Deterritorialising Allegorical Realism: Witi Ihimaera’s The Trowenna Sea 104 6 Aesthetics of Absent Causality: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun 128 Part IV: Melancholy Realisms 154 7 Spectres of Civil War Trauma: Chris Abani’s Song for Night 155 8 Metafictional Realism and the Dialectic of Allegory: Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish 177 9 Conclusion: the Historical Novel, from Postcolonial Reconciliation to Environmental Crisis 203 Notes 210 Works Cited 212 Index 227