Acknowledgements Note on the Text PART I: EPISTEMOLOGIES OF HISTORICAL REALISM 1. The Contemporary Postcolonial Historical Novel: Beyond Anti-Realism 2. Allegorical Realism: Toward a Poetics of the Postcolonial Historical Novel PART II: ALLEGORIES OF SETTLEMENT 3. Typification and Frontier Violence: Kate Grenville's The Secret River 4. The Gender of Settler Realism: Fiona Kidman's The Captive Wife PART III: NARRATING TRANSNATIONAL HISTORIES 5. Deterritorializing Allegorical Realism: Witi Ihimaera's The Trowenna Sea 6. Aesthetics of Absent Causality: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun PART IV: MELANCHOLY REALISMS 7. Spectres of Civil War Trauma: Chris Abani's Song for Night 8. Metafictional Realism and the Dialectic of Allegory: Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish 9. Conclusion: The Historical Novel, from Postcolonial Reconciliation to Environmental Crisis Bibliography Index