Simulated Futures: Post-Real Narrative in Select Short Fiction

Abstract

As narratives and communication become hyper-fragmented, politicized, and commodified, more and more employ elements of post-truth, and many are designed to convey realities that support power and influence over others. In turn, more and more authors are harnessing the postmodern versatility and market responsiveness of short stories—in tandem with the visceral subjectivity of real-world situations—to create posttruth counter-narratives, representing a post-real narrative mode. These narratives, identifiable through common rhetorical strategies and tactics, work to signal and address the very language post-truth claims use to construct their own, focusing their metanarration on situation-based reality and the utility of speculation. Nana Kwame Adjei- Brenyah’s “Zimmer Land” and Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Identity” offer contemporary examples of this evolving mode. Reading each through the lens of long-established postmodern theoretical frameworks, this thesis explores and vii subverts post-truth realities constructed to perpetuate racial violence and legitimize specific perspectives on Indigenous identity.