In the first of her recent Reith lectures, Hilary Mantel spoke of the “cultural cringe” of being a historical novelist when she started out in the 1970s, a time when historical fiction meant historical romance and wasn’t respectable or respected. This year’s Booker longlist, to be announced next week, will certainly include historical titles, judging from recent years. Contenders include Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End, already Costa Book of the Year and winner of the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction. What do we want from our historical fiction and why are literary novelists so keen to supply it? In Golden Hill, another recent historical masterpiece, Francis Spufford sets a love affair between a white government official and a black manservant against a backdrop of the 18th-century backwater that was Manhattan.

Source: The Guardian July 21, 2017 17:15 UTC