Time, Narrative and History

This chapter examines the relationship between gender, time, narrative and history, drawing on Elizabeth Grosz’s idea of the rupture or ‘nick’ and Haraway’s conception of the Chthulucene. Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring (1998) and its use of Great Time are considered here, as well as the device of the sequel as it functions in texts as different as Doris Lessing’s Ifrik novels, Mara and Dann (1999) and General Dann (2005), Maggie Gee’s The Flood (2004), Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003–2013) and Liz Jensen’s The Rapture (2009). The sequel functions, the chapter argues, to generate a state of suspension, proliferation or process that questions conventional conceptualisations of time, narrative and history.