«L’autobiographie ou les mots pour (re)composer sa vie»
”Autobiography or the Words for(Re)Constructing One’s Life”

Summary/Abstract: This paper proposes a reflection on the genre of autobiographical literature and authors who, either intentionally or casually, ‘write their lives’, laying bare the problematics of the boundary separating truth and fiction, life and writing. What is autobiography? What is its theoretical canon? How is one to delimit its boundaries? Would it be acceptable to consider as fiction the texts that ‘emanate from life’, that evoke or call on life experience? The intention is to reflect on these issues with reference to the works of Julien Gracq and António Lobo Antunes. Julien Gracq, an anti-canonical figure, opposes the traditional classification of literary genres, refusing to circumscribe literature to the closed space of a unique genre. His writing (namely La forme d’une ville, Autor des sept collines and Les Eaux étroites) includes experiences that arise from lived moments and revisited landscapes, joining real and imaginary. An attempt to answer the above questions will also be made by analysing D’este viver aqui neste papel descripto - Cartas de Guerra by António Lobo Antunes, which are viewed as a set of real experiences and information put forth by the author, in his own name. It is an intimate form of narrative, generated without a declared or even supposed aesthetic intention.

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