Biofiction, defined as literature that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, first became popular in the 1930s, but over the last forty years it has become a dominant literary form. Prominent writers such as J.M. Coetzee, Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks, Julia Alvarez, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel, Colm Toibin, Anne Enright, Colum McCann, and Michael Cunningham have authored spectacular biographical novels which have won some of the world s most prestigious awards for fiction.

However, in spite of the prominence of these authors, works, and awards, there has been...