4 posts tagged “historical fiction”

Salman Rushdie is often best known for his novel The Satanic Verses: A Novel.What many don’t know, however, is that he does magical realism in a way that is often not encountered in today’s fiction. The Enchantress of Florence: A Novelis at once a tale of Renaissance Italy, India, and most of the seas in between. It is a story of travelers, magical princesses, and the richness of desire and love. Deeply philosophical and profoundly lonely, The Enchantress of Florence: A Novelis bound to be one of Rushdie’s most popular novels.

Akbar the Great, whose realm stretches from Kabul to Bengal, is as mad and melancholy as Hamlet; despite his many wives, he lusts after a queen he dreamed up ''in the way that lonely children dream up imaginary friends.'' Then a Florentine magic man calling himself Niccolò Vespucci arrives in Akbar's court with a yarn about a common relative: a sorceress descended from Genghis Khan, a good witch at the center of a great fable. Qara Koz, a beautiful mysterious princess who bridges both Asian and European worlds with her powers of enchantment and sorcery becomes war booty.

Read more about Salman Rushdie's book The Enchantress of Florence here.

Interview with Nan Hawthorne - Author of An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England

NGB: Welcome to the site.

I’m really excited about having you with us today. Let’s get rolling: Your book An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon Englandjust came out. How long were you in the process of writing and crafting it?

Nan: I suppose that depends on how far back you want to go. The novel, in its final form, took me about two and a half years with numerous interruptions, from writing the original episodes for the collaborative writing group Ghostletters (www.ghostletters.net) to forming the episodes into a novel to editing and editing and editing!

This is not my first book, but it is my first novel, and I have to say the experience of composition of fiction was a revelation for me. In a nutshell, the characters in the book wrote the book. I found myself setting up a situation and then just watching what they did. Now I understand what the authors who say they "channel" books mean. I think the fact that I know these people, my characters, so well made this happen.

Why I know them so well and what I meant by how far you want to go back is that the characters are from a series of stories a friend and I wrote when we were both teenagers in the 1960s. The king, queen, minstrels and the mercenary lord were as much my friends as anyone from my school or neighborhood. I wrote and thought about them daily. Thankfully the intervening decades of adulthood and experience have helped me develop them into complete persons. You could realistically say this novel took 35 years to put together.

Read more about Nan Hawthorne and her new book An Involuntary King here.

I've always been a fan of historical fiction. Not only do they give you a personal, unique perspective on how that period in history might have unfolded, but it also lets you relive that period in time - at least in your mind. The history of England is one of those periods where historical fiction almost does a better job then straight history books. The interpersonal relationships between the royal family, the political jestering of the elite class, and the social dynamics of the era all lend themselves to historical fiction. The recent book by Alison Weir - The Innocent Traitor- is the perfect example.

Alison Weir brings new life and fascinating detail to this tragic and familiar tale of the Tudor Royal History. What if your parents were so bent on furthering the family name that they would bring you into a known danger and ultimately be the cause of loosing your head - literally. Lady Jane Grey was sixteen years of age when she was beheaded after being declared Queen of England for nine days. This is the story of a highly educated girl, who would have been England’s first Protestant Queen.

Weir fleshes out Lady Jane’s childhood with its cold, harsh environment where she recedes into solitude and study as defense. She is intelligent and private and goes not want public office forced upon her, but her parents and Lord Dudley (father to future Queen Elizabeth’s long time love Lord Robert Dudley) care only about possible her claim to the throne.

Read more about The Innocent Traitor: A Tudor English Historical Fiction here.

I’ve always been fascinated by the past. Ancient civilizations, mysterious ruins, grand temples, and archaeological sites – they all provide a window into helping us understand the past. But how much do we really know? When did Native Americans really arrive in the New World and how? Did the Egyptians sail to other parts of the world and teach other civilizations how to build giant pyramids? Were the Portuguese the first to sail around the world and map it? These intriguing questions have always intrigued me, and the question of just how much we know about each one is still debated. The last question has been accepted as fact for quite some time. Or has it?

The new book by author Heather Terrell questions this commonly accepted fact with mystery, intrigue, and adventure. The Map Thiefis a thriller of a book – involving archaeological finds, mysterious maps from ancient voyages, and secret Portuguese societies, and more.

During the Ming dynasty’s reign in China, a vast naval fleet was assembled and commanded by Zheng He. His mission was to sail around the world and map it. According to legend he was successful, but upon returning to China the map was destroyed and Zheng He disappeared. Now, 400 years later an archaeologist has unearthed a mummy clutching onto a mysterious map. Word gets out and suddenly the map disappears. Who is this map thief?

Read more about The Map Thief: A Must Read Historical Fiction here.