Conversations with Biographical Novelists: Truthful Fictions Across the Globe

How does a writer approach a novel about a real person? In this new collection of interviews, authors such as Emma Donoghue, David Ebershoff, David Lodge, Colum McCann, Colm Tóibín, and Olga Tokarczuk sit down with literary scholars to discuss the relationship of history, truth, and fiction. Taken together, these conversations clarify how the biographical novel encourages cross-cultural dialogue, promotes new ways of thinking about history, politics, and social justice, and allows us to journey into the interior world of influential and remarkable people.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: The Agency Aesthetics of Biofiction in the Age of Postmodern Confusion (Michael Lackey) 1. Positive Contamination in the Biographical Novel (Kevin Barry, interviewed by Stuart Kane) 2. Reflections on Truth, Veracity, Fictionalization, and Falsification (Laurent Binet, interviewed by Monica Latham) 3. Resisting the "Dictatorship of the Present" in the Biographical Novel (Javier Cercas, interviewed by Virginia Rademacher) 4. Sally Hemings' Staircase: On Biofiction's Afterlives (Barbara Chase-Riboud, interviewed by Melanie Masterton Sherazi) 5. Voicing the Nobodies in the Biographical Novel (Emma Donoghue, interviewed by Michael Lackey) 6. The Biographical Novel as Life Art (David Ebershoff, interviewed by Michael Lackey) 7. Fictions of Women (Hannah Kent, interviewed by Kelly Gardiner) 8. The Bionovel as a Hybrid Genre (David Lodge, interviewed by Bethany Layne) 9. Contested Realities in the Biographical Novel (Colum McCann, interviewed by Michael Lackey) 10. The Biographical Novelist as Cultural Diagnostician (Anchee Min, interviewed by Michael Lackey) 11. Speculative Subjectivities and the Biofictional Surge (Rosa Montero, interviewed by Virginia Rademacher) 12. Stitching Up the Auto/Biographical Seam (Stephanus Muller, interviewed by Willemein Froneman) 13. Complex Psychologies in the Biographical Novel (Sabina Murray, interviewed by Michael Lackey) 14. The Slant Truth of the Biographical Novel (Nuala O'Connor, interviewed by Julie A. Eckerle) 15. Postmodernism and the Biographical Novel (Susan Sellers, interviewed by Bethany Layne) 16. The Anchored Imagination of the Biographical Novel (Colm Tóibín, interviewed by Bethany Layne) 17. I Believe in the Novel (Olga Tokarczuk, interviewed by Robert Kusek and Wojciech Szymanski) 19. Biographical Fiction and the Creation of Possible Lives (Chika Unigwe, interviewed by Michael Lackey) Contributors Further Reading Index

About the Author :
Michael Lackey is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Morris, USA. He is the author or editor of eight books, including African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Faith, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year in 2008, and Truthful Fictions: Conversations with American Biographical Novelists (Bloomsbury, 2014).

Review :
A goldmine for biofiction researchers through its conceptual density and the vividness of its dialogues, Conversations with Biographical Novelists is also a great source of insight into the working strategies of numerous acclaimed contemporary authors from various countries, including the recent Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk. The interviews tackle specific contemporary issues like the porous boundary between historical and literary discourse and the limits of writerly responsibility, without shying away from the broader questions undergirding them, such as the meaning of writing and making sense of the world in the twenty-first century. [...] Conversations with Biographical Novelists is a valuable diagnosis of the state of our society through the lens of its literary understanding of the boundaries of truth. Its importance for cultural studies is paralleled by its impact on postmodern and post-postmodern studies, and of course, by its relevance for lifewriting scholars. [...] Next to the volume's impact on lifewriting scholarship, what stands out is its contribution to literary scholarship more generally by putting the author back on the map as a critical interlocutor. [...] The interviews offer the intellectual spectacle of writers tracing the genesis of their own ideas and theorizing aspects of their own technique [...] While remaining open to a diversity of approaches, Conversations with Biographical Novelists unveils original resonances between the conceptions of writers from all corners of the world, putting them in dialogue not just with their interviewers, but also, essentially, with one another. Michael Lackey has distinguished himself as a leading scholar of contemporary literature. In his preface to this provocative collection of interviews, he identifies the biographical novel as a 'countervailing aesthetic form' that is 'strategically different from and even in conflict with the historical novel.' The conversations gathered here express the varied processes these brilliant writers have devised in order to give shape to their unique creative visions. The questions from interviewers are stimulating, the answers are fascinating, and the whole book brings new insights and energies to the study of biographical fiction. Michael Lackey is a pioneer in this area, a brilliant and inventive critic who has lifted the biographical novel to its proper place in the literary firmament. His conversations with key novelists here - an eclectic and international collection - add immensely to his groundbreaking work. These conversations are intelligent, arresting, and informative. This is a major contribution to the field.