Towards a critical analysis of fictive geographies

Summary The recent ‘culture turn’ in geography has generated a good deal of interest in the structure of scientific knowledge and modes of writing, but there has less attention to the construction of other forms of knowledge and writing. While humanistic and regional geographers have referred to literature on the whole without comment on genre, mode of production or range of consumption, more recent critical geographers have regarded literature as a material artefact which fulfils a role designated by its position in various social and economic processes. This paper critiques both positions as offering a limited vision of the relationship between geography and literature and attempts to offer an engagement with literary fiction which analyses the content and form of the text, but also leaves room for its distinctive voice.