What is most important: imagination or research?
One without the other doesn’t work. People read historical fiction to get a genuine sense of another time, another place and another way of seeing the world, but without an imagination that lifts it into a story and a narrative involving characters that you want to engage with, it doesn’t work as a piece of historical fiction. I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history. Some people say it doesn’t matter, because it’s a novel, whereas I say that if you are setting something in an actual place and time, you owe it to the people who were there, and to the real historians, not least, to get it right. You need both imagination and rigorous research to make a piece of historical fiction come alive. Kate Mosse is the honorary director of the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her latest book, “The Winter Ghosts”, is published by Orion (14.99). The winner of the Orange Prize will be announced on 9 June.
