Back to The Globe
Featured Literary Criticism
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.
Your reading world on The Globe
Discover your next book. Keep the ones that matter.
Join The Globe for a free reader profile and discover books, writers and stories in one place.
About the book
About 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 the novels chronicle, as well as between the past and the present.
Reader conversation
Discuss this book
Are you the author or publisher?
Claim this page to verify the book information, add an author profile, update purchase links or request removal.