Interfacing Fact and Fiction in Tower in the Sky and The Emperor: A New Historicist Reading
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Date
2021-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This dissertation explores the interfacing of fact and fiction in two Ethiopian creative nonfictions, "The Emperor" (1978) and "Tower in the Sky" (2012). The main objective of the study is to examine the line and relationship between fact and fiction, thereby understanding and gaining more insight into a new historical method of presenting history in the context of creative nonfiction. In order to achieve this objective, an attempt is made to review relevant literature in relation to new historicism and the subject texts. In addition to this, the new historicist approach to literary texts is used as the study’s theoretical framework. New historicism purports that literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of the historical background and context of the time of production in order to evaluate how the text was influenced by the time in which it was created. Using this basic assumption as an initial point, the study examines the stories presented in these texts so as to find out how they are affected by situations in the times they were created and how their fact/fiction, dual nature is reflected in the process. However, this tension of classification seems not new. There are examples that combine approaches and processes, and mix life writing with history, novels with memoir and journalistic writing with fictional narrative, which in turn made the line blurry and the works hybrid. The focus of this study is thus examining how the facts and fiction mixed and made the line between them blurry in selected life narratives. Accordingly, the study attempts to analyze and interpret the two texts in light of Greenblatt’s New Historicist theory, mainly focusing on major paradigms such as textuality of history and historicity of text, and reveals postmodern concerns about re-writing history. The findings reveal that both Hiwot’s and Kapuscinski’s narratives portray the narrative of history and change its closed linear nature into multiple discontinuous histories. The narratives have unmasked the textuality and historicity of the texts; and hence the textualization of the books shows the ideological embeddedness of our knowledge about the past. The authors have explored the connections between literature, history, and the organization of social and cultural power relations through both utilizing and trying to challenge historical authorities and facts. As such, their works indicate that the experiential history of narrating subjects always blurs the line between fact and fiction. Hence, it can be said that there is an inseparable unity of discourse, history and imagination in both texts. The study’s findings further indicate that both authors are more concerned with marginalized histories of marginalized people. Based on this, with a vast array of characters and overflowing with incidents, the life writings re-create a new version of history with fused personal and political narratives. In addition to this, Kapuscinski has undergone a process of self-fashioning in which he was first a reporter (correspondents), and then showed himself up as a creative writer, whereas, Hiwot, who was influenced by the environment and time In conclusion, the two texts prove that both the historian and life writer maintain using both literary and historical mechanisms in their attempts to craft images of reality.
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Fact and fiction