Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction

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Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, and it has become a dominant literary form over the last 35 years. What has not yet been scholarly acknowledged or documented is that the Irish played a crucial role in the origins, evolution, rise, and now dominance of biofiction. Michael Lackey first examines the groundbreaking biofictions that Oscar Wilde and George Moore authored in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the best biographical novels about Wilde (by Peter Ackroyd and Colm Tibn). He then focuses on contemporary authors of biofiction (Sabina Murray, Graham Shelby, Anne Enright, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who Lackey has interviewed for this work) who use the lives of prominent Irish figures (Roger Casement and Eliza Lynch) to explore the challenges of seizing and securing a life-promoting form of agency within a colonial and patriarchal context. In conclusion, Lackey briefly analyzes biographical novels by Peter Carey and Mary Morrissy to illustrate why agency is of central importance for the Irish, and why that focus mandated the rise of the biographical novel, a literary form that mirrors the constructed Irish interior.

Reviews

A leading scholar of biofiction studies, Lackey here offers a comprehensive history of the rise of biofiction, its aesthetics, and its sociopolitical implications. His marvelous exploration of Irish authors foundational contributions to biographical fiction carefully differentiates biographical from historical fiction, tracing the wider significance of that distinction through the subject novels historical contexts. Lackey deftly intersperses the relevant history of critical, philosophical, and literary meditations on the nature of art with nuanced, illuminating readings of major examples of the genre. As wide-ranging and inclusive as it is focused and insightful, this study not only deepens our understanding of biofiction, but also opens new and exciting directions in the field of Irish Studies. * Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, Professor of Modern Irish Literature, Le Moyne College, USA, and author of Trauma and Recovery in the 21st-Century Irish Novel *
Beautifully written and compelling in its arguments, Michael Lackeys latest, Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction, builds on his scholarship as the pre-eminent voice in the field of biofiction. This book is essential reading not only for those interested in how Ireland has been shaped by the force of its literary presence and novel-inspiring characters, but for readers who appreciate writers from Oscar Wilde to Anne Enright. Lackeys lively essays will send you back to the bookshelf to get a deeper understanding of the books you love and those you have yet to experience. * Sabina Murray, author of The Human Zoo and Valiant Gentlemen *
In this readable and original study, Michael Lackey makes a claim for the centrality of Ireland and the Irish to the emergence of biofiction in the 20th century. With illuminating analyses of Wilde, Moore, Enright, Tibn, and more, Lackey traces biofictions exuberant autonomy from the strictures of history and the historical novel. This book is sure to inspire a new generation of scholars to think afresh about the intellectual crosscurrents of the biofiction boom from the 1990s to the present. * Ciln Parsons, Associate Professor of English and Director of Global Irish Studies, Georgetown University, USA *
The voice in Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction is unusual in contemporary scholarship. It is urgent, patient, concerned to be plainly understood, and convinced of the importance of is message. Michael Lackey has pioneered the newly-named and currently-popular genre biofiction, novels about real people. He has traced its history and origins (Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and George Moore are key begetters), interviewed its contemporary practitioners, and spelled out its essential significancethat humans have agency, can achieve critical insights, and change their value systems, bringing into being new cultural frameworks in which to live. This book does some serious work. * Adrian Frazier, Professor Emeritus, National University of Ireland, Galway, and Member, Royal Irish Academy *

Author Bio

Michael Lackey is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including of The Modernist God State: A Literary Study of the Nazis Christian Reich (Bloomsbury, 2012), Truthful Fictions: Conversations with American Biographical Novelists (2014), and The American Biographical Novel (2016).