Boldrini, Lucia. 2012. Autobiographies of Others: Historical Subjects and Literary Fiction. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-50737-0 [Book]

No full text available

Abstract or Description

In this volume, Boldrini examines "heterobiography"—the first-person fictional account of a historic life. Boldrini shows that this mode is widely employed to reflect critically on the historical and philosophical understanding of the human; on individual identity; and on the power relationships that define the subject. In such texts, the grammatical first person becomes the site of an encounter, a stage where the relationships between historical, fictional and authorial subjectivities are played out and explored in the ‘double I’ of author and narrating historical character, of fictional narrator and historical person. Boldrini considers the ethical implications of assuming another’s first-person voice, and the fraught issue of authorial responsibility. Constructions of the body are examined in relation to the material evidence of the subject’s existence. Texts studied include Malouf’s An Imaginary Life, Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang, Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Adair’s The Death of the Author, Banti’s Artemisia, Vázquez Montalbán’s Autobiografía del general Franco. Also discussed, among others: Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, Tabucchi’s The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa, Giménez-Bartlett’s Una habitación ajena (A Room of Someone Else’s).

Contents:
Introduction: The Portrait of a Voice
1. Heterobiography and The Utopia of Man
2. Heterobiography, Violence, and the Law
3. The Madness of the Documentary and the Aesthetics of the Body
4. The Author? In Theory, Dead: Heterobiography and Responsibility
5. The Polluted Swamp: Heterobiography, Dialogue, and History.
Conclusions.

Item Type:	Book
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	English and Comparative Literature Research Office > REF2014
Date:	25 June 2012
Item ID:	7134
Date Deposited:	02 Jul 2012 09:22
Last Modified:	23 Jun 2017 15:14
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7134

Available Versions of this Item

• Autobiographies of Others: Historical Subjects and Literary Fiction. (deposited 02 Jul 2012 09:22) [Currently Displayed]

Edit Record (login required)