Tag: Historical Fiction
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Claudia Efemini set to publish debut novel A Letter Away From Asaba in Spring 2023
“A Letter Away From Asaba”, the debut novel of former Retrospect Columnist Claudia Efemini, follows the lives of two friends who confront the British press’ censorship of the 1967 Asaba massacre. Exploring their grief, trauma and resilience, Claudia’s novel, set for release in 2023, aims to bring awareness to a largely neglected event in Nigerian history.
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All Aboard the Bus to Lübeck
Written by Mai Takahashi. Leaving his hometown for the city of Lübeck, a young man contemplates the journey that awaits him and the fifteenth-century artist who inspires him.
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Penelope
Writen by Hazel Atkinson. Known for her unwavering fidelity, Penelope did not lose hope that her husband, Odysseus, would return from the Trojan War, despite the decades that passed. This fictional piece relates the story through the eyes of the legendary Queen of Ithaca.
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Review: Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (2020)
Written by Melissa Kane. Maggie O’Farrell’s is a magisterial text. The writing is sublime, bringing to life Elizabethan Stratford-upon-Avon. However, it is a difficult text and requires a degree of familiarity with its inspiration, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
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Every Man needs a Perfect Wife
Written by Jenn Gosselin. Satirizing a 1956 article from Good Housekeeping, this piece of historical fiction speculates on how R.E. Dumas Milner may have expected women to behave.
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The Corn Idol
Written by Jenn Gosselin. This historical piece looks at the rituals surrounding agriculture in Latin America, examining the practices from the perspective of the Corn Idol.
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Review: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Written by Kvitka Perehinets. ‘The Silence of the Girls’, a 2018 novel by Pat Barker, offers a feminist interpretation of events in Homer’s ‘Iliad’, giving a voice to those who, for millennia, have remained unheard.
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Helen Takes Stock
Written by Justin Biggi. “The etymology of her name is considered “uncertain”. Some would see it as a terrible thing. To not know where your name is from, to not be able to find roots in the soft earth. She finds it makes it easier to discover herself for her own sake.”
Retrospect Journal 