The novel is today the most popular literary genre worldwide. Irs early history has not been writen yet. My

project aims to generate a paradigm shift (conceptually. cross-culturally and interdisciplinarily) in our

understanding of this history. It offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of the persistence

of ancient novelistic material in (Greek, Latin. Syriac, Arabic, Annenian. Georgian and Coptic) hagiographical narrative traditions in the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity (4th-8th cent.) and the early Middle Ages (8th-12th

cent.). Even though these periods are now seen by historians. classicists. medievalists and Byzantinists as crucial

transition periods between Antiquity and the 'high' Middle Ages. they constitute a blind spot of several centuries

on the radar of scholars working on the history of The novel. who conceptualize Ihem as an 'empty' interim period between the latest ancient representatives of the genre (4th cent.) and its re-emergence in 11th/12th century

Byzantium and 11th-century Persia. This project, on the other hand. advances the hypothesis That

different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted. rehearsed. re-used and adapted

them 10 various degrees in order to represent saints as heroes/heroines. In this sense. (re)constructions of heroism

in these traditions should be understood. at least partly, as 'novelistic' and raise crucial issues about

fictionalization and Ihe texts' own implicit conceptualizations of fiction as a literary form.