Cosmographie Metafiction in Sesshu Foster's "Atomik Aztex"

Abstract

Historiographic meta fiction is one of the few postmodern genres that are still highly relevant in contemporary fiction. Its lasting significance can be attributed to the fact that it has been developed further by authors who combine it with other concerns and fictional strategies. The present analysis discusses these contemporary expansive tendencies within the genre by focusing on a text that is particularly significant in this context: Sesshu Foster's first novel Atomik Aztex (2005). This essay argues that Atomik Aztex pushes the boundaries of historiographic metafiction by fusing it with ontological fiction, creating what may be conceived of as cosmographic metafiction. The line of argument opens with a history of historiographic metafiction that focuses on recent attempts to transform the genre. Atomik Aztex is then provisionally classified as historiographic metafiction in order to show afterwards how it exceeds that classification through its incorporation of ontological fiction. Through interworld cross-references that make use of metafictional practices and intertextual references, Atomik Aztex enhances the question of how we imagine history through fiction to the question of how we imagine worlds through history and fiction and at the same time stresses the political aspect of such a literary practice of cosmographic metafiction.