This Age of Autobiography
摘要
This chapter turns to Ferrante and Knausgård’s public reception on the literary market, regarding their works—Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels (2011–2014) and Knausgård’s MY STRUGGLE serial (2009–2011)—as contemporary examples of autofiction, relying on strategies of literary autobiography, as identified in Coetzee, Roth, and Grass. Ferrante and Knausgård’s work is read and analysed in comparison to the literary autobiographical strategies established in earlier chapters, putting them into dialogue with the gender-related expectations directed at these authors in the context of autobiography and autofiction. How can literary autobiography be situated within the genre of autobiography and the broader practice of life writing? What is the literary-historical significance of literary autobiography and life writing in contemporary culture? How should criticism account for its ambiguous status on the levels of form and genre? Where is the value in studying this form of literature and life writing as a specific autobiographical practice? This final chapter moves beyond the formal and ontological elements of the analysed texts and their authors to reflect more widely on the stature and significance of autobiographical practices. The chapter will refer to the current popularity of life writing in general, outlining the reception and ambiguous position of literary autobiography.