Hi, I have always been interested in historical fiction, the amount of fascinating settings that history provides is amazing, but it seems like people always just write about the same few times and places. So I am here looking for a historical fiction book that
1. Is well-researched, and accurate, i.e doesn’t constantly eschew that research. It’s fine if it’s a period where not much is known about it so the author has to invent things to fill in the gaps, but it should keep to a minimum cases where it is perfectly known by historians that something was a certain way but the book has hit a different way.
2. “Literary” in the sense that it has real themes and feels like it can tell you something about the human experience, not just a book where the gimmick is like “look it’s set in this time and place!” But by thematic I don’t mean an allegory, it can have some parallels with present times but it shouldn’t be clearly trying to just be a metaphor for the present moment even if that means sacrificing the people being written like they really did live in the time with period-accurate mindsets.
3. Not set in England in any time period, the USA and focusing on slavery, the USA “Wild West”, or any of Europe during World War II. Bonus points if it isn’t set in Europe within the last thousand years or East Asia within the last 500, and bonus points if, if it is set in a place that was at one point colonized by Europe, it is set completely pre-colonialism (or if in a place like Japan or China that was never colonized by Europe, there are no European major characters).
4. No magic or fantasy elements.
by HopefulOctober
11 Comments
Both are chunky book but I’ma bif fan of both
– A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
– Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Both are set in India. Neither are pre-colonialism but a Suitable Boy is set a short time after the independence and follows pretty much an all indian cast of characters, touching on so many aspects of the hsitory, society, politics, culture etc.
Shantaram is ‘technically’ historical fiction, it’s set in the 80’s. Also has a more diverse cast, in the sense that there’s Indian, European, Australian and Afghan characters.
No bonus points since it’s set in medieval Europe, but *The Name of the Rose* is very literary, very good, very well-researched to the point of minutiae. It’s fictional main characters but set around the very real tensions in the Catholic Church and with the HRE and it references a lot of real people by name.
Years ago I read Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault, because I saw it on a list of books that historians recommend. It was a challenging read, but worth it.
It is about Alexander’s growth to manhood. You will get a glimpse of ancient Macedonia, the people that lived there, the rulers, the politics, rivalries, the festivals. Its all really well told and based in historical records.
You might like:
Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
The Coffee Trader by David Liss
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konigsburg
By Fire, By Water by Mitchell Kaplan
Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong
*The Good Earth* by Pearl S. Buck.
Deep River by Karl Marlantes excellent book about logging culture in northwest U.S.
The Tokaido Road by Lucia St Clair Robson. It’s set in medieval Japan and has it all! A great buddy story, a romance, revenge, and some beautiful haiku poetry, and a retelling of the 47 ronin Samuri who avenge their lord. One of my favorite books.
Just finished *A History of Burning* by Janika Oza and it is really great!
It’s a family saga that follows generations through the late 1800s to 1980s in India, Pakistan and Uganda. From the Indian boys basically kidnapped into slave labour by the British to build the East African Railway, through the various dictatorships/caste systems in Uganda including the expulsion of all Asian people from the country by the Amin regime, through to the family’s resettlement in Canada.
It’s about displacement of people, families and communities. It is about colonization and exploitation. It is about intergenerational trauma. It is about life as an immigrant. It is about so many things.
It’s fantastic and is on a couple of book award lists that have come out recently.
Any book by James A Mitchener that fits your area/time requirements. Mitchener is the most well researched writer of historical fiction you can find. My favorites are Centennial, Hawaii, and The Source.
The whole clan of the cave bear, mammoth hunter, etc thing may have overblown a bit of this, but I absolutely loved the storyteller trilogy by sue harrison. Can’t remember the exact timeline, but I believe it’s a story about maybe alaskans eight thousand years ago telling stories about what happened to their ancestors ten thousand years before that. It’s an examination of their lives and includes a bit of murder mystery. They have their superstitions, of course, but it’s all very believable. I found the second book first, so it’s my favorite, but the whole trilogy is good.
There’s also the people series, by kathleen o’neal gear and w michael gear. It’s also about a number of tribes, but white people start showing up near the end of people of the mist, i think, so there’s a bit of colonialism there.