FICTION FOCUS
Historical fiction –should we tell it as itused to be? Or evenapproximately as itused to be?
It can be quite tricky, writing aboutthe past – about periods in historywhen we weren’t alive ourselves butin which we somehow feel at home.But, however much we feel at home,some of the time we’ll still be merelyguessing how it must have felt tobe living without electric lighting,without antibiotics and without basicsanitation, even if the people in ournovels aren’t aware such things exist– or, even if they do know but haveno access to these things themselves.Our ancestors had their own waysof coping, as we do today, whenuniversal free wifi and cures for allcancers are still distant dreams.