Penetrating “the Unknown” and Reconstructing “the Known”：on the Narration Character of Historiographic Metafiction in The Known World

Edward Jones' novel The Known World is regarded as the works of classic contemporary slave narrative. Based on the theme of black slave owner, it rewrites an unknown history of slavery by people at large with artistic strategy of mixing fact with fiction; so exposes the textual and fictional features of history. It breaks through the traditional slave narratives on dualism between the white and black as well as slavery and freedom. In the meantime, it uses the multi-angle narrative strategy to construct the discourse, setting up the discourse rights for the black on their own history, also probes into history as "discourse site" from the black subjectivity and ideology, etc. Analyzing on the features of the novel text and narrative, it seeks to arouse people's concern and profound thinking for the fate of contemporary African-Americans.