The challenges of writing bio-fiction, finding a balance between the biographical and the fiction

What is it about?

I discuss the challenges involved in writing the biographical novel The Black Messiah (currently published only in Dutch translation as De zwarte messias), which imaginatively retraces the life of Olaudah Equiano. My first (ultimately failed) attempt to reimagine Equiano took the form of a children’s book in the late 1990s. This project immediately drew my attention to the two primary, antithetical difficulties of writing biographical fiction: on the one hand, one needs to rely on historical information to recreate the past accurately but, on the other, fiction — being art — cannot impart a great deal of such information without becoming too didactic.

Featured Image

Perspectives