Overview

This monograph treats modes of fictionality in contemporary auto/biography, memoir and autofiction. Within the context of what some writers see as the fabrication and fakery of the traditional novel and given their desire to move closer in their writing to the 'truth' of 'reality', the monograph focuses on the work of four authors (Karl Ove Knausgaard, Rachel Cusk, Jeanette Winterson, and Xiaolu Guo), all of whom have produced novels, as well as autobiographically informed works and accounts of their lives, along a fact-fiction continuum. Against the backdrop of a seeming hunger for reality, and a distrust of fabrication, the monograph is interested in revisiting assumptions about genre, with a view to problematising conventional understandings of what separates fiction and non-fiction. In focussing on specific works by the named authors, it seeks to show the extent to which their work enacts aspects of a contemporary concern with the nature and constitution of reality, and the status of an auto/biographical subject produced through writing.

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9781839996375

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Reviews

With Radical Realism, Autofictional Narratives and the Reinvention of the Novel,  Fiona Doloughan offers an insightful study that combines literary, historical, and cultural contexts in its analysis of the discussed works … It will be of interest to scholars interested in unconventional narrative forms and their literary as well as extratextual impact. KULT_online Through its careful close reading of their works, the book makes a clear contribution to the scholarly understanding of the four writers in question. The book goes into extensive detail on the four authors and highlights the entanglements of nuance inherent in writing and reading autofiction, especially its open-endedness and ambiguity. - Life Writing  “Fiona J. Doloughan’s timely and engaging book excites for its unique examination of the radical realism practiced by contemporary auto fictional writers. Doloughan’s detailed and sharp exploration into the practice and nature of this post-truth literary realism bears on questions of reality and self-representation, fact and fiction, and the novel form and its social value. A must-read for scholars of autofiction, fictionality, realism or the history of the novel” —Nancy Pedri, Professor and Head of English, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. “What is the autobiographical ‘real’? Doloughan’s illuminating studies on autofiction and the auto fictional demonstrate that borders between life and art are permanently shifting, as are our ideas about what is reality and realism. What remains constant is our search for meaning and the worldmaking power of literature language.” —Jens Brockmeier, Professor of Psychology, The American University of Paris. Author of Beyond the Archive: Memory, Narrative, and the Autobiographical Process (Oxford University Press 2015). “Fiction and nonfiction, objectivity and subjectivity appear mutually exclusive, but autobiography as a literary genre challenges this notion. Reflecting on self, author and narrator, Mikhail Bakhtin used the metaphor of the mirror: in it, we can see the reflection, but not ourselves. What is this reflection like? Fiona J. Doloughan’s new monograph examines a few controversial literary cases of this ‘transgredience’ – the fluid genre of ‘autofiction’ bending linear dimensions.” —Natasha Lvovich, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Literary Multilingualism, Professor Emerita of English, City University of New York.

Author Information

Fiona J. Doloughan is senior lecturer in English (literature and creative writing) at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. She is the author of two previous monographs and numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on aspects of contemporary narrative.

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