Autofiction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"Anything is fair in these times. Have you not seen writers serving up their own hearts to the public, or very often their mistress' hearts when invention fails? We are coming to this, dear; we shall go in quest of adventures, not so much for the pleasure of them as for the sake of having the story to tell afterwards." --A Prince of Bohemia (1840) by Honoré de Balzac |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Autofiction is a term used in literary criticism
Coined by Serge Doubrovsky in 1977 with reference to his novel Fils, autofiction refers to form of fictionalized autobiography. Autofiction combines two paradoxically contradictory styles: that of autobiography, and fiction. An author may decide to recount his/her life in the third person, to modify significant details or 'characters', using fiction in the service of a search for self. It has parallels with the faction, a genre devised by Truman Capote to describe his novel In Cold Blood.
Autofiction is principally a genre associated with contemporary French authors, among them: Alice Ferney, Annie Ernaux, Michel Houellebecq Olivia Rosenthal, Anne Wiazemsky, and Vassilis Alexakis. Catherine Millet's 2002 memoir The Sexual Life of Catherine M. famously used autofiction to explore the author's sexual experiences.
Autotheory
Maggie Nelson's book The Argonauts (2015) is one of the recent autobiographies. Maggie Nelson calls it "autotheory"—a combination of autobiography and critical theory.
See also
- Autobiografiction
- Autobiographical novel
- Biography in literature
- False memoir
- Fake memoir
- I-novel
- Non-fiction novel
- Roman à clef
