Haven, latest novel from Emma Donoghue, the Booker-shortlisted author of Room (2010), is cut from similar cloth it’s a grim and grisly tale of monastic privation and isolation in seventh-century Ireland. For other novelists, however, the dirt and the darkness appears to be the draw, as seen in Ottessa Moshfegh’s Lapvona, a bleak portrait of pain, suffering and filth in a fictional medieval village in Eastern Europe. In last year’s Matrix, Lauren Groff brought the spirited Marie de France back to life as the empowered leader of a sisterhood of nuns in a 12th-century abbey while Katherine J Chen’s Joan – published earlier this month – is a grand historical epic and feminist celebration of France’s most famous girl warrior. A new era in historical fiction is upon us these days, the Middle Ages are all the rage! For some, it’s an opportunity to look at an old story through a new lens.
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