美國當代作家法樂（Karen Joy Fowler）的《莎拉‧康納利》（＂Sarah Canary＂）以美國內戰結束之後重建時期的西北部為背景，其中鐵路華工趙阿清則是美國文學中罕見的華人主角。小說透過鐵路華工趙阿清以及其他社會邊緣人物的敘事，描述十九世紀末各種異類角色在主流權力之下如何受到暴力壓迫與排擠，匯集成華人移工、精神病患、女權主義者、內戰老兵以及美國原住民等等異鄉／異族人的離散故事。經由再現這一重「異類／他者」－異族人、異鄉人、甚至異星人－在美國大地上的奇幻漂流之旅，以及提供超越科幻小說範疇的過剩歷史資訊，法樂在小說之中以綜合科幻、奇幻、推理與歷史小說的方式對既有的權力運作與社會結構提出強而有力的質詰，建構出對抗官方歷史的對抗論述。論文首先由奇幻書寫的文類定義人于，探討《莎拉‧康納利》作為推想小說的意義，爬梳小說與奇幻文學傳統的關係，以及如何運用神話故事展現美國多元文忱的特性；其次探討《莎拉‧康納利》如何以虛構文本與美國歷史事件對話的方式，再現小說中的各個異類角色的歷史與文他背景，發展出風格獨特的推想性的歷史小說。

In Karen Joy Fowler''s Sarah Canary, the arrival of an alien at the American Northwest of the 1870s offers us a window into the lives of socially marginalized characters at that particular time period, including Chinese immigrants, mental patients, proto-feminists, Civil War veterans, and Native Americans. The nameless woman, a Dickinsonian character who gets named Sarah Canary in a mental asylum, is the central force that links these traumatized characters together. The violence and oppression suffered by this group of ＂aliens＂ is keenly observed by the Chinese railroad worker Chin Ah Kin, who is clearly a member of the ＂alien＂ group and has gone through various adventures because of Sarah. Although the novel is generally believed to focus on the differences of personal perception within the context of the first encounter with an extraterrestrial life form, the fact that the narrative is framed by Chin''s feelings and observations indicates that his ＂alien-ness＂ can best represent people of marginal status in the nineteenth-century America. Thus, Fowler''s fiction offers an alternative counter-discourse to the official history that tends to erase and silence marginal figures. Moreover, Fowler inserts a catalogue of global, historical facts of the late twentieth century, which are seemingly unconnected to the main storyline, to highlight the continued practices of oppression and racism in the contemporary society. In the final analysis, by deploying a unique hybrid form-a combination of speculative fiction and historical novel-Fowler''s first novel can be read as a historical speculative fiction that effectively interrogates the existing power structure and social stratification that collectively produce a nation of ＂aliens.＂