Literature Atlas

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Genre

Autofiction

Short, Lyric and Nonfiction Forms

In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography, allowing an author to recount lived experience while employing narrative techniques such as third-person perspective, altered details, invented subplots and imagined scenarios. This blending of factual and fictional elements distinguishes autofiction from traditional autobiography, though it typically still acknowledges the author's real life within its narrative frame.

Facts
Notable Example
Serge Doubrovsky's novel Fils (1977), the work he coined the term autofiction to describe. 1
Defining Trait
A form of fictionalized autobiography in which an author recounts their own life, sometimes in the third person, modifying details and characters or inventing subplots while portraying an accurate self within the narrative. 1
Connections

Form Of Genre

Sources
1. Autofiction (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Definition section, first sentence
    In autofiction, an author may decide to recount their life in the third person, modify significant details and characters, or use invented subplots and imagined scenarios with real-life characters in service of an accurately portrayed self within the narrative.
  • Definition section, on Serge Doubrovsky and Fils
    Serge Doubrovsky coined the term in 1977 with reference to his novel Fils.
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