What is Speculative Historical Fiction?

Historical-Fiction is the adaptation of a historical subject as a ‘play-frame’ for fiction. It is one of the many “Speculative” genres—a label coined by Robert Heinlein—for fiction that comments on the real world. For further reading, see below.

Further Reading

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997)

Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016)

Danielle Daniel’s Daughters of The Deer (2022)

E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel (1971)

Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979)

Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966)

Brown, Stephanie. “What Is Speculative Fiction?” Celadon Books, 27 Oct. 2022.

O’Grady, Megan. “Why Are We Living in a Golden Age of Historical Fiction?” The New York Times, 7 May 2019.