Cirrus@Austlit

'In this essay, Sarah Pinto is concerned with the historical novel's imaginative re-creation of historical moments and figures. She considers Grenville's fascination with archival research and with the processes of historical investigation in the context of the seemingly unceasing public debates about The Secret River as a way of explaining why historians felt the need to respond to t he novel. At stake, she suggests, were questions about the ways in which history is told and, in the process, how accounts of history by be differentiated from Historical fiction. Indeed, it is the very notion of empathy that some historians regarded as 'unhistorical'. Pinto argues that the rivalry between history and fiction, and history's claim to have access to a verifiable past, have tended to shut down what could and should be a productiove exchange between the two.'( Kossew, 'Introduction' xix)