Reviews and Reports

Yvonne Delhey, Rolf Parr and Kerstin Wilhelms (eds.), Autofiktion als Utopie // Autofiction as Utopia

Authors

  • Alexandra Effe University of Oslo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.10.38169

Keywords:

book review

Abstract

This volume, emerging from a conference, brings into conversation research on the two title-words autofiction and utopia. It focuses on what the introduction defines as the point of convergence of these genres or writing modes: the desire to shape reality according to one’s individual vision, which, the editors note, can serve as critical commentary on society (1). In exploring this intersection, the volume takes up an important strand in the discussion on autofiction, namely the one about its potential functions both for individual authors and for society more broadly. Autofiction has been argued to not only allow individuals to express and transform themselves, but also to, for example, empower author and readers with narrative agency by challenging dominant cultural narrative models (Meretoja 2021) and work towards post-conflict reconciliation (Dix 2021).

Author Biography

Alexandra Effe, University of Oslo

Alexandra Effe is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, where she teaches in the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages. She specializes in narrative theory, cognitive literary studies, life writing, autofiction, and postcolonial and world literature. She is the author of J. M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Narrative Transgression (Palgrave, 2017), co-editor of The Autofictional (Palgrave, 2021) and of a special issue on “Autofiction, Emotions, and Humour” (Life Writing). She has published articles on narrative and cognitive theory, contemporary literature, and postcolonial literature in Journal for Narrative Theory, Modern Fiction Studies, and Journal of Postcolonial Writing. As Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, she co-runs the project “Autofiction in Global Perspective.”

Published

2021-12-06

Issue

Vol. 10 (2021): EJLW

Section

Reviews and Reports

Copyright (c) 2021 Alexandra Effe

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