Historiographic Metafiction

Book excerpt: I ground this reading of historiographic metafiction in a series of postmodern texts which work out of and subvert traditional notions of historical writing. I use Linda Hutcheon's construction of this postmodern genre to investigate the particular literary and historical strategies these texts use and abuse in order to write an alternative history. Beginning by reviewing the theory surrounding historical fiction as well as historiography, I investigate the specific textual strategies that historiographic genres-such as the postmodern novel, the Canadian long poem, the short story and to some extent, the film genre-use to present their self-reflexive interaction between history and fiction.