Historical Fiction on 2009 Booker Longlis

I heard the Booker Longlist being read out last night by Jim Naughtie and Locasta Miller on Front Row.  Although it seems an impossible task, whittling 132 novels down to the “baker’s dozen” longlist of just 13, here are the results:
The 2009 longlist is:
Author                          Title  and Publisher
Byatt, AS                      The Children’s Book Random House – [...]

Excellent BBC programme to mark 14 July: “Terror: Robespierre and the French Revolution”

I was transfixed by this excellent programme with its interweaving voices of historians and philosophers (Simon Schama and Slavoj Zizek offer very different interpretations of the Jacobin Revolutionary mindset), other commentators and the prize-winning novelist Hilary Mantel – whose novel A Place of Greater Safety is set in Revolutionary France.  For once, the “drama” in [...]

Beelzebub: a controversial novel to look forward to

Youssef Ziedan’s Azazeel (or Azazil) – to give it its original title – won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and will be published as Beelzebub by Atlantic Books in 2010.

The availability of money for the translation – courtesy of IPAF – is a major boost to opening the doors to this rich literary [...]

Cover story in Solander

This piece appeared as the cover story for the latest issue of Solander.
More than a Matter of Words: Lucinda Byatt looks at four Italian historical novels in translation
I’ve included the full article on a separate page (click to read it here)
Just to whet your appetite, the novels I’ve chosen are The Leopard,  The Name of [...]

Il Gattopardo at Fifty (1958-2008)

I only read about this by chance, unfortunately – also because I’m committed to another meeting on the same day and sadly won’t be able to attend.  But I thought it might be worth posting in case other enthusiasts of Il Gattopardo might be interested, and also because it because it ties in with my [...]

Solander 24 (November 2008)

The latest copy of Solander popped through the cat flap a couple of mornings ago (anything that is too big for the postbox comes in with the cat).

It’s a good issue with several excellent articles.  One that stood out was Michelle Moran’s survey of 15 historical novelists on the subject of spending time in the [...]

Sarah Johnson’s Twenty Classic Historical Novels

Defining historical fiction is extremely tricky, as Sarah Johnson knows well: readers, she writes, may be “forced to sort through tales of modern suburban angst, lurid contemporary thrillers, or generic bodice rippers to find the works that match a compelling story with an informed view of the past.”
She’s well qualified to talk about the subject [...]