Why Historical Fiction Is Going Mainstream

Historical fiction is suddenly everywhere. It's on the bestseller list, in college classrooms, and probably on the lap of the woman sitting next to you on the train. A genre that at one point felt maligned and boring-neither serious nor sought after-has undergone a full-on transformation. In just the past few months, some of the most anticipated new releases by contemporary literature's most beloved authors have been historical, including Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds, Zadie Smith's The Fraud, James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, and Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend.

Evidence of historical fiction's resurgence is everywhere: three out of five works of fiction nominated for this year's National Book Award are historical. Hernan Diaz's Trust won the Pulitzer Prize. New and anticipated film and TV adaptations like Lessons in Chemistry, Pachinko, All the Light We Cannot See, and Daisy Jones and the Six (alongside the enduring popularity of period dramas like Bridgerton) show an ever-widening interest in the genre, taking the form of everything from serious literary study to guilty pleasure.