Out of his-tory. "The rising of Bella Casey" di Mary Morrissy

In his pioneering study of 1957, Istoričeskij roman, Gyorgy Lukács maintains that the historical
novel can provide a truthful and reliable account of facts. This notion reflects a monolithic notion of History
as the sole repository of the past, the fact there is one past, and consequently one authoritative version of it.
Over the past few decades, owing to history revisionism and to postcolonial studies, the traditional
conception of History has given way to a more complex understanding of the past, which can be viewed (and
reviewed) from different perspectives. The contemporary historical novel thus becomes the place whence the
peripheral silenced stories of minor characters are told. Their existence is acknowledged by way of
narratives that look back at traditional models while also experimenting with and adapting to new modes of
history (re)telling. One such case is seen in Mary Morrissy’s The Rising of Bella Casey (2013). Set between
1916 and the 1940s, this contemporary historical novel revisits a turbulent phase of Irish history vis à vis the
equally turbulent story of her protagonist, Bella. About a century from those events, Morrissy reflects upon
the legacy of Ireland's colonial past, confronting patriarchal narratives and disrupting traditional notions of
time to suggest a cyclical pattern out of which the marginal voice of her protagonist will rise.