Writing backwards : historical fiction and the reshaping of the American canon
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"With novels by Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, Philip Roth, Julia Alvarez, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, historical fiction has become a, if not the dominant genre in literary fiction. In the 1980s and 1990s, the American literary field fundamentally reorganized itself around historical fiction and the cultural, pedagogical, and political value of history. This decisive turn toward the past has both motivated, and been motivated by, the increasing recognition of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native writers within the literary canon. Alexander Manshel provides a new history of literary multiculturalism that recognizes the central place of the historical novel, as well as the central role of literary institutions that have privileged historical recovery over present political struggle. While the increasingly diverse literary canon has much to do with the trajectory of national politics, it depends far more on funding organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, literary prizes like the National Book Award, and the scholarship and syllabi of university English departments. Manshel investigates how the shifting priorities of these institutions have reshaped the history of American literature over the last forty years, documenting not only how the newly inclusive literary canon came to exist but also what, and who, it still excludes. The book concludes by looking at works by writers such as Paul Beatty, Jesmyn Ward, Tommy Orange, and Valeria Luiselli as offering a kind of challenge to the "historical" turn in U.S. fiction"--,Provided by publisher.