Cirrus@Austlit

'Some recent definitions of biographical fiction emphasise its separation from historical
fiction and that this distinction is indicated by the use of the protagonist’s real name. In
this paper I analyse novels by Australian authors Peter Carey, Steven Carroll, Robert
Drewe, Richard Flanagan, Kate Grenville, and Alex Miller, that are based on the lives
of figures from the past. Some of these retain the protagonist’s name while others
change the name but activate readers’ knowledge of the historical subjects through
different means. I argue that the name is not the only indicator in fiction that activates
the force of biographical connections and, furthermore, that the insistence on these two
components of the definition could exclude from relevant discussion novels based on
the lives of real people that shed light on how history is constructed in fiction.' (Publication abstract)