Between Failure and Empowerment: Historicity, Genre and Cultural Clashes in David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

This chapter explores the role meta-genres of fact and fiction play in assessments of a literary work as either a failure or a success. Taking the example of David Mitchell’s novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), the chapter argues that historical novels are particularly affected by this meta-generic pattern that influences both the reading and the reception process of a given work. Following Windberger, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet needs to be read as a work of historiographic metafiction in order to understand Mitchell’s use of pastiche, illustration and myth. The chapter analyses the narrative strategies used to represent  – and contest  – historicity and genre, on the one hand, and the depiction of cultural clashes between the Japanese and the Dutch, on the other. Windberger suggests that the novel bolsters its agenda by challenging readers to think beyond established patterns such as fact and fiction, self and other.