Metafiction and metahistory in contemporary women’s writing

In recent years, historical fiction, particularly that by women authors, has been at the cutting edge of postmodern reconceptualisations of the past and of contemporary worlds. This collection examines the dynamic experimentation of contemporary women writers from North America, Australia, and the UK, offering new insights into the works of internationally acclaimed as well as popular writers, including Florence Barclay, A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Caryl Churchill, Helen Darville, Stevie Davies, Eva Figes, Philippa Gregory, Susan Kenney, Daphne Marlatt, Sena Jeter Naslund, Michèle Roberts, Alice Thompson, and Jeannette Winterson. Blurring the dichotomies of the popular and the literary, the fictional and the factual, and covering those narratives that defy categorisation, the essays assembled in this volume offer new approaches to reading contemporary women fiction writers' reconfigurations of history.