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"Historical Fiction"
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The haunting of Maddy Clare
\"In 1920s England, a young woman of limited means and even less experience confronts the ghost of a mysterious serving maid.... Sarah Piper's lonely threadbare existence changes when her temporary agency sends her to assist a ghost hunter. Alistair Gellis--rich, handsome, scarred by World War I, and obsessed by ghosts--has been summoned to investigate the spirit of the nineteen-year-old maid Maddy Clare, who is said to haunt the barn where she committed suicide. Maddy hated men in life, and she will not speak to them in death. But Sarah is unprepared to go alone into a haunted barn looking for the truth. She's even less prepared for the arrival of Alistair's associate, rough, unsettling Matthew Ryder, also a veteran of the trenches, whose scars go deeper than Sarah can reach. Soon, Sarah is caught up in a desperate struggle. For Maddy's ghost is no hoax--she's real, she's angry, and she has powers that defy all reason. Can Sarah and Matthew discover who Maddy was, where she came from, and what is driving her desire for vengeance...before she destroys them all?\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Jewish Pasts, German Fictions
Jewish Pasts, German Fictions is the first comprehensive study of how German-Jewish writers used images from the Spanish-Jewish past to define their place in German culture and society. Jonathan Skolnik argues that Jewish historical fiction was a form of cultural memory that functioned as a parallel to the modern, demythologizing project of secular Jewish history writing.
What did it imply for a minority to imagine its history in the majority language? Skolnik makes the case that the answer lies in the creation of a German-Jewish minority culture in which historical fiction played a central role. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Jewish writers and artists, both in Nazi Germany and in exile, employed images from the Sephardic past to grapple with the nature of fascism, the predicament of exile, and the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust. The book goes on to show that this past not only helped Jews to make sense of the nonsense, but served also as a window into the hopes for integration and fears about assimilation that preoccupied German-Jewish writers throughout most of the nineteenth century. Ultimately, Skolnik positions the Jewish embrace of German culture not as an act of assimilation but rather a reinvention of Jewish identity and historical memory.
eBook
The gown : a novel of the royal wedding
\"London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation in spite of their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers in the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their bond, along with their nascent hopes for a brighter future, are tested when they are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honor: taking part in the creation of Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown. Toronto, 2011: More than half a century later, Heather Mackenzie seeks to unravel the mystery of a set of embroidered flowers, a legacy from her late grandmother. How did her beloved Nan, a woman who never spoke of her old life in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries, so similar to the exquisite motifs that embellished the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding more than sixty years before? And what was her Nan's connection to the celebrated textile artist Miriam Dassin? The Gown takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous wedding gowns in history was created, balancing behind-the-scenes details with a sweeping portrait of a society left reeling by the calamitous costs of victory. Its heroines, whose points of view alternate and intersect throughout its pages, are connected by threads of loss and love, suffering and survival, regret and redemption\"-- Provided by publisher.
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A writer’s guide to Ancient Rome
How do you create a fictional story out of an historical period? What do you need to know about the people, the places, the events? What’s the better inspiration: historical scholarship or popular knowledge? A writer’s guide to Ancient Rome serves as inspiration and a guide to the Roman population, economy, laws, leisure, and religion for the author, student, general reader seeking an introduction to what made the Romans tick. The Guide considers trends and themes from roughly 200 BCE to 200 CE with the occasional foray into the antecedents and legacy on either side of the period. Each chapter explicates its main themes with examples from the original sources. Throughout are suggestions for resources to mine for the subject at hand and particular bits affected by scholarly debate and changing interpretation based on new discoveries or reinterpretation of written and material remains. It’s up to you whether or not you will produce a work of careful verisimilitude or anachronistic silliness (or one of the flavours in between). That’s your call as creator. This little guide is but a brief survey of a vast quantity of resources, sources, and scholarship on the Classical world that is available for reflection, evaluation, interpretation, and creativity. It is intended to open doors for further reading and consideration as you construct your own Roman world – it’s a welcome mat inviting you in to listen to the stories of the Romans and to contribute tales of your own.
eBook
Performing the Self: A Bakhtinian Carnivalistic Reading of Amita Parikh's The Circus Train
This study employs Mikhail Bakhtin's theory on \"Carnival\", to interpret Amita Parikh's novel The Circus Train (2022) as part of the broader framework of historical fiction that examines themes related to identity, belonging and psychological resilience against the backdrop of World War II. It addresses a gap in previous research by being the first to utilize a carnivalistic approach to the analysis of The Circus Train, demonstrating how Bakhtin's theory on Carnival is applicable to identity-construction processes and self-discovery within the context of chaotic, liminal spaces beyond the medieval celebrations Bakhtin made reference to. The methodology used in this study consists of a qualitative approach to literature, combining Bakhtin's carnival model with a close textual analysis in order to understand the relationship between the grotesque realism within literature and social hierarchies and the transformation of individuals. This study indicated three findings: 1. The novel critiques established power relationships of the time, allowing for the marginalized characters to re-negotiate their identities and reclaim their agency; 2. The use of grotesque imagery enhances our understanding of the themes surrounding adaptation and survival and gives us insight into how humans made sense of the world in a time of crisis; 3. The \"Carnival\" becomes a transformative strategy of individuals fostering resilience, liberation and self-definition in the face of destruction. By integrating Bakhtinian theory with contemporary literary discourse, this study offers a deeper understanding of how narrative spaces nurture emotional development and identity formation in historically disrupted contexts. It further recommends extending carnivalistic frameworks to the analysis of literature concerned with war, displacement, and belonging, as such approaches uncover hidden dimensions of human agency, trauma, and renewal, positioning The Circus Train as a pivotal contribution to modern studies of identity and transformation.
Journal Article
The American Historical Imaginary
In The American Historical Imaginary: Contested Narratives of the Past in Mass Culture Caroline Guthrie examines the American relationship to versions of the past that are known to be untrue and asks why do these myths persist, and why do so many people hold them so dear? To answer these questions, she examines popular sites where fictional versions of history are formed, played through, and solidified. From television's reality show winners and time travelers, to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, to the movies of Quentin Tarantino, this book examines how mass culture imagines and reimagines the most controversial and painful parts of American history. In doing so, Guthrie explores how contemporary ideas of national identity are tied to particular versions of history that valorize white masculinity and ignores oppression and resistance. Through her explanation and analysis of what she calls the historical imaginary, Guthrie offers new ways of attempting to combat harmful myths of the past through the imaginative engagements they have dominated for so long.
eBook
Show me a mountain
From the Costa- and Commonwealth-shortlisted author of Pao, a story of revolution and oppression, privilege and poverty, love and betrayal, set against the backdrop of Jamaican independence. Fay Wong is a woman caught between worlds. Her father is a Chinese immigrant who conjured a fortune out of nothing; her mother, of African heritage, grew up on a plantation and now reigns over their mansion on Lady Musgrave Road, sipping Earl Grey tea in the Kingston afternoons. But the Chinatown haunts where her father spends his time are out of bounds to Fay, and the rooms of Lady Musgrave Road are filled with her mother's long-kept secrets and uncontrollable rages--rages against which Fay rebels as she grows from a girl into a headstrong woman. As she tries to escape the restraints of her privileged upbringing, striving for independence in a homeland that is trying to do the same, Fay's eyes are opened to a Jamaica she was never meant to see. She encounters gangsters and revolutionaries, priests and prostitutes, and witnesses great sacrifices and betrayals. But when her mother decides that she must marry the racketeer Yang Pao, she finds herself on a journey that leads to sacrifices and betrayals of her own. In Show Me A Mountain , Kerry Young creates a vivid portrait of a woman and a country struggling to fashion a future unburdened by the past.
Book
Küchlya
Küchlya(1925), the first novel of the great Russian formalist Yury Tynyanov givesus a vividly written and moving recreation of the childhood, youth, beliefs andadventures of an eccentric and idealistic young poet and friend of Pushkin,tragically caught up in the Decembrist insurrection of 1825 against the Russianautocracy.
eBook