Narrating the Past - by A Robinson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In recent years controversy has surrounded the narrative turn in history and the historical turn in fiction. This book clarifies what is at stake, tracing connections between historiography and life-writing, arguing that the challenges posed in representing the past illuminate issues which are central to all literary narrative.

Review Quotes

'Alan Robinson's monograph, Narrating the Past: Historiography, Memory and the Contemporary Novel offers a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between theories of history and contemporary narrative fiction...In summary, Robinson's book is a theoretically sophisticated engagement with and intervention in the debates of the past forty years or so regarding the relationship between history and fiction. This is framed against innovative and thorough analyses of a selection of representative novels.' - Year's Work in English Studies

'Historical fiction evokes into virtual existence a former possible world, retrieving the past into the present. In explaining how it does this, Robinson argues for a renewed interest and appreciation of the imaginary presence of the past in history and memory and for greater understanding between historians and literary critics. A complex and ambitious scholarly project, Narrating the Past is important reading for cultural historians, historiographers and literary specialists.' - Jane Mattison, English Studies

About the Author

ALAN ROBINSON is Professor of English at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. He has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Lancaster and Cologne and at all the German Swiss universities.