Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction

Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, and it has become a dominant literary form over the last 35 years. What has not yet been scholarly acknowledged or documented is that the Irish played a crucial role in the origins, evolution, rise, and now dominance of biofiction.
Michael Lackey first examines the groundbreaking biofictions that Oscar Wilde and George Moore authored in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the best biographical novels about Wilde (by Peter Ackroyd and Colm Tóibín). He then focuses on contemporary authors of biofiction (Sabina Murray, Graham Shelby, Anne Enright, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who Lackey has interviewed for this work) who use the lives of prominent Irish figures (Roger Casement and Eliza Lynch) to explore the challenges of seizing and securing a life-promoting form of agency within a colonial and patriarchal context.
In conclusion, Lackey briefly analyzes biographical novels by Peter Carey and Mary Morrissy to illustrate why agency is of central importance for the Irish, and why that focus mandated the rise of the biographical novel, a literary form that mirrors the constructed Irish interior.

Michael Lackey is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is series editor of Bloomsbury's Biofiction Studies series and author or editor of 13 books, including of The Modernist God State: A Literary Study of the Nazis' Christian Reich (Bloomsbury, 2012), Truthful Fictions: Conversations with American Biographical Novelists (Bloomsbury, 2014), The American Biographical Novel (Bloomsbury, 2016), and Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction (Bloomsbury, 2021). He is also recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar award, and the Obama Institute Fellowship.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Ireland, the Irish, and Biofiction I. Historical Context for the Rise of Biofiction 1. Oscar Wilde and the Invention of a Life-Creating Fiction 2. George Moore's The Brook Kerith and the Scandal of the Biographical Novel II. Irish Figures as Biofictional Symbols 3. Roger Casement and the Transnational Origins of "Irishness" 4. Traumatized Agency in Eliza Lynch Biographical Novels III. Theoretical Reflections about Biofiction 5. A Poetics of the Biographical Novel: Agency, History, Fiction 6. Why Names Matter: Concluding Reflections about Autonomy and Biofiction Appendix: Interview with Mario Vargas Llosa Bibliography Index