As an avid reader of historical novels, I am always surprised whenever people say, “I just don’t like historical fiction” – not because I can’t imagine others having different literary tastes from myself, but because such a blanket judgment suggests that they are talking about just one thing – that every novel set in the past belongs to the same homogenous, barren landscape, of little relevance to contemporary readers.
For my part, many happy hours spent in the company of Hilary Mantel, Robert Harris, CJ Sansom and others, have convinced me that the reality is very different. Far from sharing a set of identical, or even similar, qualities, books counted among this genre – one requirement being that the action take place at least 60 years before the time of writing – encompass stories from many traditions.
In the work of those writers just mentioned and others, many of them Irish, including John Banville, Martina Devlin, Lia Mills, Joseph O’Connor, Lucy Caldwell and others, I have found myself immersed in tales of detective fiction, romance, family sagas, philosophical debate, war stories, feminist polemics, political thrillers and more.
The whiff of condescension which often greets historical fiction, even today, is nothing new.
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