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 tensionsboth within the historical and cultural make-up of a country, and within the Asian continentin 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.
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 Lohs 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 Rushdies Shame.- Connections, Contact, and Community in the Southeast
Asian Past: Teaching Transnational History through Amitav Ghoshs The Glass
Palace.- Until it lives in our hands and in our eyes, and its ours:
Rewriting Historical Fiction and The Hungry Tide.- Coda.
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.
