Aga Saga - Origin

Origin

The term was coined in 1992 by novelist Terence Blacker to describe specifically the work of Joanna Trollope, which not only inspired the label but popularized the type of literature typically so labeled. Trollope indicated in 2003 that "he name itself indicates a provincial cosiness, and is patronising of the readers. A lot of what I write into the books is bleak and challenging but I will be the Queen of the Aga saga to my dying day. It's jolly annoying, but it is better than being the Queen of Hearts". In 2003 The Guardian reported that Blacker had expressed both his respect for the author and his remorse for contributing the label, indicating that it was applied "early in her career and these tags are rather distorting and unfair", but Blacker later indicated in The Independent that "lthough it must be bloody annoying for a writer to have her work reduced to a flip phrase, I have only used it once and in a perfectly respectable context. What happened to the term after that is no more my responsibility than it would be Trollope's if her jokey reference to a certain kind of serious fiction as "grim lit" took hold". In 2005, Trollope indicated that she was "fairly tired of such an inaccurate and patronising tag". In the "Aga Saga" entry, Oxford Companion to English Literature exemplifies the genre by the work of Trollope, but notes that "by no means all her work fits the generally comforting implications of the label".