The intriguing dance of history and fiction

Abstract

In this essay I explore the common ground of history and fiction, suggesting that they are a tag team, sometimes taking turns, sometimes working in tandem, to deepen our understanding and extend our imagination. But I also argue that there are times when the distinction between them is vital, and that it is incumbent on historians – on those who choose at certain moments to write history – to insist and reflect on the difference. I hope to create a context in which such explanations will not be misinterpreted as defending territory. In the course of the essay I refer to historians who write fiction and novelists who write history, and I draw especially on the work of the novelists Eleanor Dark and Kate Grenville, poet and historian Judith Wright, and the historians Inga Clendinnen, Grace Karskens and Ross Gibson.