Post 9/11 historical fiction and alternate history fiction : transnational and multidirectional memory /
Drawing on theories of historiography, memory and diaspora, as well as from existing genre studies, this book explores why contemporary writers are so fascinated with history. Pei-chen Liao considers how fiction contributes to the making and remaking of the transnational history of the United States...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Palgrave Macmillan,
[2020]
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| Summary: | Drawing on theories of historiography, memory and diaspora, as well as from existing genre studies, this book explores why contemporary writers are so fascinated with history. Pei-chen Liao considers how fiction contributes to the making and remaking of the transnational history of the United States by thinking beyond and before 9/11, investigating how the dynamics of memory, as well as the emergent present, influences readers reception of historical fiction and alternate history fiction and their interpretation of the past. Set against the historical backdrop of World War II, the Vietnam War and the War on Terror, the novels under discussion tell Jewish, Japanese, white American, African, Muslim and Native Americans stories of trauma and survival. As a means to transmit memories of past events, these novels demonstrate how multidirectional memory can be not only collective but connective, as exemplified by the echoes that post-9/11 readers hear between different histories of violence that the novels chronicle, as well as between the past and the present. |
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| Physical Description: | vi, 203 pages ; 22 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 3030524914 9783030524913 |