The Journal of Historical Fictions
published by the Historical Fictions Research Network
Volume 7, Issue 1: “Introduction” by Stephanie Russo, p. 1
Welcome to Volume 7 issue 1 of The Journal of Historical Fictions. It has once again been a delight to read such exciting, innovative new work in the field of historical fiction studies. I would like to encourage scholars in the field to submit to the Journal, and to contact me if you would like to get involved in any other way. I am open to suggestions regarding special issues and guest editors, so please do get in touch.
As I write this, The Odyssey is the biggest film in the world, and the film has prompted significant public discussion of the ways in which we think about historical fictions. That bugbear of all historical fiction scholars—accuracy—is once again in the news. How can you “accurately” represent a myth? What would an “accurate” version of The Odyssey even look like? The Greek myths are a wonderful touchpoint through which to explore the complex relationship between history and fiction because texts like The Odyssey refuse to distinguish between the two. Already an historical fiction in its own day, The Odyssey is a reminder that history and fiction are not distinct entities, or necessarily in tension with each other, but instead woven together and subject to constant reinvention and reimagination.
This issue brings together three exciting new contributions from scholars across the world. These papers underline the truly global nature of scholarship in the field.
Keisha Allan’s article “Women Constructing the Nation in In The Name of Salomė by Julia Álvarez” explores the way that historical novels can reimagine nationhood. Álvarez’s novel is deeply engaged in challenging masculinist definitions of nationhood in the Dominican Republic, and Allan argues that In The Name of Salomė presents an alternative vision: an intergenerational, transnational genealogy of feminist resistance. Allen argues that the matria thus replaces the patriarchy in this historical novel that spans the 1850s through to the 1970s.
Bonnie White’s article “Scarred, Marked, Afflicted: The Wounded Body as Place in Global’s Bomb Girls” takes us to Canada and to a television series about the lives of female munitions workers in Ontario during the Second World War. White focuses on the image of the body as a site of war, arguing that, in doing so, the series rejects a “sanitised and mythologised history of the Second World War”. The series stands as an excellent reminder that the trauma of war is not confined to the battlefront but is also visible on the bodies of those on the homefront.
Mika Hallila’s “The Metamodernist Historical Novel: The Case of Asko Sahlberg” asks us to consider how metamodernism, a discourse that oscillates between modernism and postmodernism that has emerged in the twenty-first century, might be shaping the contemporary historical novel. Hallila selects as her case studies two novels by the Finnish author Asko Sahlberg. These novels both reshape Biblical history in light of what Hallila argues is the emergent form of the metamodernist historical novel.
I do hope you enjoy reading this new edition of The Journal of Historical Fictions. Our next edition is due to be published at the end of 2026.
