The Nonfiction Movement

[Kire]

V. S. Naipaul says fiction just does not make sense of the world anymore. And a number of editors and publishers are saying the same thing: truth is stronger than fiction. With audio excerpts of Mr. Naipaul's interview with Rachel Donadio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/books/review/07DONADIO.html?th&emc=th

[punpirate]

1. Anne Coulter...

... publishes fiction in the guise of non-fiction. Is she telling the truth? Is the news that promotes her work engaging in the truth, or propagandizing?

The problem might more be described as a problem with the corporate focus on profit, and its neglect of fiction in favor of books which traditionally have been better sellers per issue.

The other factor, I think, is that we are going through very odd times, where the politics of life are overwhelmingly occupying. It's after those times that writers of fiction have the time to absorb what has happened and put it all into form. I think, for example, of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, which appeared about twelve years after the assassination of Huey Long, or Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses which came years after the introduction of the Islamist government in Iran.

Cheers.