Autobiographies of Others - Historical Subjects and Literary Fiction (Hardcover)

In this volume, Boldrini examines "heterobiography" the first-person fictional account of a historic life. Boldrini shows that this mode is widely employed to reflect critically on the historical and philosophical understanding of the human; on individual identity; and on the power relationships that define the subject. In such texts, the grammatical first person becomes the site of an encounter, a stage where the relationships between historical, fictional and authorial subjectivities are played out and explored in the double I of author and narrating historical character, of fictional narrator and historical person. Boldrini considers the ethical implications of assuming another s first-person voice, and the fraught issue of authorial responsibility. Constructions of the body are examined in relation to the material evidence of the subject s existence. Texts studied include Malouf s An Imaginary Life, Carey s True History of the Kelly Gang, Ondaatje s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Adair s The Death of the Author, Banti s Artemisia, V zquez Montalb n s Autobiograf a del general Franco. Also discussed, among others: Yourcenar s Memoirs of Hadrian, Tabucchi s The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa, Gim nez-Bartlett s Una habitaci n ajena (A Room of Someone Else s).