Conversations with Biographical Novelists: Truthful Fictions across the Globe

How does a writer approach a novel about a real person?

In this new collection of interviews, authors such as Emma Donoghue, David Ebershoff, Colm Tóibín, David Peace, Jane Yolen, David Lodge, and Colum McCann sit down with literary scholars to discuss the relationship of history, truth, and fiction. Taken together, these conversations enable readers to explore how these issues are negotiated in contemporary world literature.

These interviews clarify how the biographical novel strategically promotes cross-cultural and transnational understanding and conversation, encourages new ways of thinking about history and politics, advances social justice, jourbaneys into the interior world of influential and remarkable people, and creates the conditions for increased human autonomy.