Writing the self as other: Autrebiography

Paul A Williams

doi:10.52086/001c.18606

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Writing the self as other: Autrebiography

Journal article

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Writing the self as other: Autrebiography

Paul A Williams

Text, Vol.23(2), pp.1-14

2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.18606

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Abstract

Performing Arts and Creative Writing

autrebiography

autobiography

JM Coetzee

Roland Barthes

Philippe LeJeune

méconnaissance

biographemes

autobiografiction

autobiographics

According to Roland Barthes, the autobiographic act of remembering and reclaiming the past commits the fallacy of conflating the author, narrator and protagonist, and giving the first two power over the latter. The past self is a fictional 'other', and the writing of memoir is a reading of the past self as a text. JM Coetzee therefore calls his meta-autobiographies (the three-part Scenes from a Provincial Life) autrebiographies, or 'other-life-writing'. In this paper, I discuss the need for writers of memoir and autobiography to construct a past self as 'other', and argue for the impossibility of any kind of authentic representation of the 'self' in memoir or autobiography.

Details

Title: Writing the self as other: Autrebiography
Authors: Paul A Williams (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
Publication details: Text, Vol.23(2), pp.1-14
Publisher: Australian Association of Writing Programs
Date published: 2019
DOI: 10.52086/001c.18606
ISSN: 1327-9556
Organisation Unit: School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Creative Industries - Legacy; Sustainability Research Cluster
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99450675802621
Output Type: Journal article

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