Post-9/11 Historical Fiction and Alternate History Fiction

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 U.S. 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 WWII, 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 thenovels chronicle, as well as between the past and the present.

Highlights the evolving relationship between memory, identity, and violence in a transnational age Provides an overview of the boom in American historical fiction and alternate history fiction Takes a decentered approach to studying post-9/11 fiction through the lens of ethnic minority groups

Autorentext

Pei-chen Liao is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and the winner of the 2017 FAOS Innovative Young Scholar Award. Her publications include'Post'-9/11 South Asian Diasporic Fiction (2013) and articles in Life Writing, Review of English and American Literature, EurAmerica, and several other journals.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 Introduction: Beyond and Before 9/11: A Transnational Historical Turn.- Chapter 2 The Second Coming: The Resurgence of the Historical Novel and American Alternate History.- Chapter 3: America First: Fear, Memory, Activism, and Everyday Life in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.- Chapter 4: In Memory of Toyoko H. Nozaka: Life Writing, Cultural Memory, and Historical Mediation in Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor was Divine.- Chapter 5: Walking a Tightrope: Illusion and Disillusion of American Innocence and Exceptionalism in Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin.- Chapter 6: What about the Names?: Post-9/11 Commemorative Culture and Islamaphobia in Amy Waldman's The Submission.- Chapter 7: Conclusion: Connective Memories and Histories.