Biographical Fiction A Reader

In recent years, the biographical novel has become one of the most dominant literary forms-J.M. Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Colum McCann, Anne Enright, Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Carey, Russell Banks, and Julia Alvarez are just a few luminaries who have published stellar biographical novels. But why did this genre come into being mainly in the 20th century? Is it ethical to invent stories about an actual historical figure? What is biofiction uniquely capable of signifying? Why are so many prominent writers now authoring such works? And why are they winning such major awards?

In Biographical Fiction: A Reader, some of the finest scholars and writers of biofiction clarify what led to the rise of this genre, reflect on its nature and form, and specify what it is uniquely capable of doing. Combining primary and critical material, this accessible reader will be invaluable to students, teachers, and scholars of biofiction.

Introduction
Michael Lackey: The Rise and Legitimization of Biographical Fiction

Authors' Reflections
Leonard Ehrlich: “Author's Note” from God's Angry Man (1932)
Wallace Stegner: Forward from Joe Hill: A Biographical Novel (1950)
S. Guy Endore: “A Final Word” from King of Paris (1956)
Bruce Duffy: “Preface” from The World as I Found It (1987)
William Styron: “Nat Turner Revisited” from The Confessions of Nat Turner (1992)
Julia Alvarez: “A Postscript” from In the Time of the Butterflies (1994)
Barbara Chase-Riboud: “Afterword” from Sally Hemings (1994)
Malcolm Bradbury's: “Preface” from To the Hermitage (2000)
M. Allen Cunningham: “Author's Note” from Lost Son (2007)
Susan Sellers: “About Vanessa and Virginia” from the Two Ravens Press UK website (2008)
Brian Hall: “Author's Note” from Fall of Frost (2008)
Barbara Mujica: “Going for the Subjective: One Way to Write Biographical Fiction” from a/b:
Auto/Biography Studies (2015)
Joanna Scott: “On Hoaxes, Humbugs, and Fictional Portraiture” from a/b: Auto/Biography Studies (2015)

Interviews
Julia Alvarez: “Fixed Facts and Creative Freedom in the Biographical Novel” from Truthful Fictions (2014)
Russell Banks: “The Truth Contract in the Biographical Novel” from Truthful Fictions (2014)
Bruce Duffy: “In the Fog of the Biographical Novel's History” from Truthful Fictions (2014)
Joyce Carol Oates: “Enhanced Symbolic Interiors in the Biographical Novel” from Truthful Fictions (2014)

Lectures and Forums
Irving Stone: “The Biographical Novel” from Three Views of the Novel (1957)
C. Vann Woodward, Ralph Ellison, Robert Penn Warren and William Styron: “The Uses of History in Fiction” from The Southern Literary Journal (1968)
Michael Lackey, Jay Parini, Bruce Duffy and Lance Olsen: “The Uses of History in the Biographical Novel” from Conversations with Jay Parini (2014)

Essays
Georg Lukács: “The Biographical Form and Its 'Problematics'” from The Historical Novel (1937)
Carl Bode: “The Buxom Biographies” from College English (1955)
Ina Schabert: “Fictional Biography, Factual Biography, and their Contamination” from Biography (1982)
Alain Buisine: “Biofictions” from Revue des Sciences Humaines (1991)
Jay Parini: “Fact or Fiction: Writing Biographies Versus Writing Novels” from Some Necessary Angels: Essays on Writing and Politics (1997)
Jonathan Dee: “The Reanimators: On the Art of Literary Graverobbing” from Harpers (1999)
Martin Middeke: “Introduction” from Biofictions: The Rewriting of Romantic Lives in Contemporary Fiction and Drama (1999)
David Lodge: “The Year of Henry James” from The Year of Henry James: or, Timing is All: the Story of a Novel (2006)
Colm Toibin: “A More Elaborate Web: Becoming Henry James” from All a Novelist Needs: Colm Toibin on Henry James (2010)
David Lodge: Wells (2014)

Bibliography
Index

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