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This collection explores the interpretation of historical fiction through fictional representations of the past in an Asian context. Emphasising the significance of region and locality, it explores local networks of political and cultural exchanges at the heart of an Asian polity. The book considers how imagined pasts converge and diverge in developed and developing nations, and examines the limitations of representation at a time when theories of world literature are shaping the way we interpret global histories and cultures. The collection calls attention to the importance of acknowledging local tensions-both within the historical and cultural make-up of a country, and within the Asian continent-in the interpretation of historical fiction. It emphasizes a broad-spectrum view that privileges the shared historical experiences of a group of countries in close proximity, and it also responds to the paradigm shift in Asian Studies. Discussing how local conditions shape and create expectations of how we read historical fiction and working with the theme of fictionality and locality, the volume provides an alternative framework for the study of world literature.
List of contents
Introduction.- Can One Speak of the September 30th Movement? The Power of Silence in Indonesian Literature.- Cultural Encounters and Imagining Multi-cultural Identities in Two Taiwanese Historical Novels.- Fate or State: The Double Life of a Composite Chinese Spy in A Map of Betrayal.- Contesting Chineseness in Vyvyane Loh's Breaking the Tongue.- Female Body as the Site of Historical Controversy: Ghostly Reappearance in South Korean Historical Fiction.- Cosmopolitan Retellings and the Idea of the Local: The Case of Salman Rushdie's Shame.- Connections, Contact, and Community in the Southeast Asian Past: Teaching Transnational History through Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace.- "Until it lives in our hands and in our eyes, and it's ours": Rewriting Historical Fiction and The Hungry Tide.- Coda.
About the author
Jane Yeang Chui Wong is Assistant Professor of English at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research and teaching interests include Renaissance literature and historiography, Asian fiction in English, and modern drama. Her research in modern drama also extends to 20th British drama. In 2013, she published Affirming the Absurd in Harold Pinter (Palgrave). Her contributions to modern drama can also be found in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Modern Language Review, TDR: The Drama Review, and Theatre Research International.
Summary
This collection explores the interpretation of historical fiction through fictional representations of the past in an Asian context. Emphasising the significance of region and locality, it explores local networks of political and cultural exchanges at the heart of an Asian polity. The book considers how imagined pasts converge and diverge in developed and developing nations, and examines the limitations of representation at a time when theories of world literature are shaping the way we interpret global histories and cultures. The collection calls attention to the importance of acknowledging local tensions—both within the historical and cultural make-up of a country, and within the Asian continent—in the interpretation of historical fiction. It emphasizes a broad-spectrum view that privileges the shared historical experiences of a group of countries in close proximity, and it also responds to the paradigm shift in Asian Studies. Discussing how local conditions shape and create expectations of how we read historical fiction and working with the theme of fictionality and locality, the volume provides an alternative framework for the study of world literature.
