Philippine E-Journals

FICTIONALIZING CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Paulino Lim Jr.

Discipline: Literature, History

 

Abstract:

Fictionalizing history is different from Historicizing fiction, or writing history as fiction.

In this paper I will attempt to answer three questions. First, what is meant by fictionalizing history? This may seem like a contradiction of terms since we associate history with truth, and fiction with imagination. Truth corresponds to the way things are, imagination to the way things aren't. Truth is telling it like it is, imagination is telling it like it isn't, or wishing that it should be.