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This volume addresses the current boom in biographical fictions across the globe, examining the ways in which gendered lives of the past become re-imagined as gendered narratives in fiction. Building on this research, this book is the first to address questions of gender in a sustained and systematic manner that is also sensitive to cultural and historical differences in both raw material and fictional reworking. It develops a critical lens through which to approach biofictions as 'fictions of gender', drawing on theories of biofiction and historical fiction, life-writing studies, feminist criticism, queer feminist readings, postcolonial studies, feminist art history, and trans studies. Attentive to various approaches to fictionalisation that reclaim, appropriate or re-invent their 'raw material', the volume assesses the critical, revisionist and deconstructive potential of biographical fictions while acknowledging the effects of cliché, gender norms and established narratives in manyof the texts under investigation.
The introduction of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com
Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
List of contents
1. Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction: Introduction.- Part I. Recovery, Revision, Ventriloquism: Imagining Historical Women.- 2. "Everything Is Out of Place": Virginia Woolf, Women, and (Meta-)Historical Biofiction.- 3. Fictional Futures for a Buried Past: Representations of Lucia Joyce.- 4. Imagining Jiang Qing: The Biographer's Truth in Anchee Min's Becoming Madame Mao.- Part II. Re-imagining the Early Modern Subject.- 5. From Betrayed Wife to Betraying Wife: Re-writing Katherine of Aragon as Catalina in Philippa Gregory's The Constant Princess.- 6. Jean Plaidy and Philippa Gregory Fighting for Gender Equality Through Katherine Parr's Narrative.- 7. Australian Women Writing Tudor Lives.- Part III. Writing the Writer: History, Voyeurism, Victimisation.- 8. Biofiction, Compulsory Sexuality, and Celibate Modernism in Colm Tóibín's The Master and David Lodge's Author, Author.- 9. In Poe's Shadow: Frances Sargent Osgood.- 10. Stanislawa Przybyszewska as a Case of Posthumous Victimisation: On the Ethics of Biofiction.- Part IV. Creativity and Gender in the Arts and Sciences.- 11. Re-visiting the Renaissance Virtuosa in Biofiction on Sofonisba Anguissola.- 12. The "Mother of the Theory of Relativity"? Re-imagining Mileva Maric in Marie Benedict's The Other Einstein (2016).- Part V. Queering Biofiction.- 13. Visceral Biofiction: Herculine Barbin, Intersex Embodiment, and the Biological Imaginary in Aaron Apps's Dear Herculine.- 14. "A Way Out of the Prison of Gender": Interview with Novelist Patricia Duncker.
Report
"The capacious collection Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction explores a range of biofictions, from early twentieth-century texts, such as Virginia Woolf 's Flush, to more contemporary twenty-first-century titles. ... Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction serves as an invaluable new addition to biofiction scholarship, and will no doubt be much-utilized by scholars and students alike." (Stephanie Russo, Biography, Vol. 46 (2), 2023)
"The volume as a whole is of great value to scholars and students of biofiction as a genre. The majority of essays also work in isolation for those interested in the authors and historical subjects represented. ... this volume paves the way for a more inclusive and flexible understanding of biofiction. As it stands, it represents a welcome addition to life-writing scholarship." (Bethany Layne, European Journal of Life Writing, Vol. 12, 2023)
"Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction (2024) makes a fine contribution to the Palgrave Studies in Life Writing series. ... This book will prove useful to students, especially postgrads, and academics working in English studies, historical fiction, literary studies, life writing (in particular, biography), and women's studies. ... Imagining Gender in Biographical Fiction was a fine text ... ." (Gay Lynch, Life Writing, February 19, 2024)
