There's nothing new about historical fiction being a popular genre in books, movies, and ATV. I guess the author's point is that all of a sudden, historical fic

There's nothing new about historical fiction being a popular genre in books, movies, and ATV. I guess the author's point is that all of a sudden, historical fiction novels are winning major awards typically given to books in the genre that is named literary fiction. Here's the thing: it's not that historical fiction has come up in the world, or suddenly gotten good enough, or popular enough to be noticed. It's that literary fiction is largely irrelevant to most people — even the fraction of people who still read at all — and has been getting less relevant for decades. Most other genres are more relevant than literary fiction: to the culture, by sales, whatever. By which, I mean that it's not that these authors and awards committees are deigning to dip their toes into genres they wouldn't have before, it's that they're jumping on board a bandwagon rather than getting left behind.