Aglaja Veteranyi – The Autofiction af a Nomadic Living
Aglaja Veteranyi – The Autofiction af a Nomadic Living

Summary/Abstract: In the field of life-writing, autofiction represents a literary category placed at the border between fiction and autobiography. Often perceived as similar to fictional (auto)biography, autofiction represents a fictional writing based on the experience of the self. Such creative strategies have been adopted by the Swiss female writer of Romanian origin, Aglaja Veteranyi. Within her two novels, Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta and The Shelf with the Last Breaths, the author creates a surreal narrative fiction based on her traumatic childhood experiences. The multiple traumas that the child faces are mainly caused by the migratory experience that the family has to deal with. Because of the oppressive communist regime in the country at that time, Aglaja’s mother decides to leave the country with her daughter and her sister working at an international circus. Through the lens of affects and feelings coming not only from customs, food, but also family traditions constantly associated with those from the native country, the main character subjectively exposes her migratory living. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyse Aglaja Veteranyi’s autofictional work, in order to observe the way in which migration together with the never-ending pressure of the communist regime that does not allow the family to turn back into the country become a severe traumatic experience for the subjective female narrative voice. Originating from a Balkan territory, Aglaja Veteranyi becomes a transnational writer that presents through different fictional strategies the traumatic autobiographical experience of migration.

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