Maak een vuist als je geen hand hebt. Inclusiviteit in (pre)historische jeugdromans

Samenvatting

The one-handed hero: Inclusiveness in historical fiction for children

Having grown up with a sister in a wheelchair meant that I took this normalcy into the fictional world of the past. So when I crossed paths with Drem in Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1958 novel Warrior Scarlet, he was to me just a boy with one functional arm. It was not until much later that I realised he was one of the very few protagonists in historical fiction with a disability. A lack of inclusiveness is problematic, first, when it comes to readers identifying with the physical condition of the hero(ine) and, second, because, from an archaeological perspective, the proportion of healthy people in historical fiction seems improbably high, while the representation of people with a disability is often stereotyped. Maybe archaeologists should provide authors of historical fiction with a more informed description of the past.