Don DeLillo’s Libra: A Study of Facts and Fiction

Authors

  • Dr. Reetinder Joshi Associate Professor of English, SCD Govt. College, Ludhiana
  • Gurpreet Kaur Assistant Professor in Communication Skills & Head of the Department of Social Sciences IET Bhaddal, Ropar

Keywords:

Narratology, Crime Novels, Historical Facts

Abstract

In the twentieth century there was a boom of true crime novels. These texts were experimental and enriched with narratology. These works of art had marked a watershed in contemporary American Literature in their attempt ‘to mingle factual reportage with novelistic style’. All of them became famous for the true-crime depiction after undergoing an extensive research of the criminal minds, and their backgrounds. So this essay examines the relationship between the narration of the historical and the fictional in Don DeLillo’s Libra (1988), a text that foregrounds the difficulties posed by historical facts by reinventing them in fiction. The aim is to study how this novel melds historical fact and fiction.

References

Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2002. Print.

Connolly, Kevin. "An Interview with Don DeLillo." The Brick Reader. Edited by Linda Spalding and Michael Ondaatje. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991. 260-69.

DeCurtis, Anthony. ‘“An Outsider in This Society’: An Interview with Don DeLillo." South Atlantic Quarterly 89.2 (1990): 281-304.

DeLillo, Don. Libra. London: Penguin Books, 1988. Print.

“Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy”. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1964.

Duvall, John N. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.

Mott, Christopher M. “Libra and the Subject of History.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 35.3 (1994).

Stull, James N. Literary Selves: Autobiography and Contemporary American Nonfiction. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993.

Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. Ed. The New Journalism. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. http://mhmasse.iweb.bsu.edu/Capote's%20Legacy.html

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Published

01.04.2012

How to Cite

Reetinder Joshi, & Gurpreet Kaur. (2012). Don DeLillo’s Libra: A Study of Facts and Fiction . Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 3(4), 6–12. Retrieved from https://journals.eltai.in/index.php/jtrel/article/view/JTREL030403

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 4 (2012): April

Section

Research Articles

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