Self as Performative Gesture: The Author-Character’s Role in Autofiction
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Abstract
This research paper examines author-characters in autofiction, arguing that their liminal insertion between fact and fiction disrupts traditional perceptions of authorial authenticity. Through analysis of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade and Ben Lerner’s 10:04, I establish how author-characters (distinct from self-inserts or authorial surrogates) function as multi-layered representations which both embody and fictionalise the author. Using Roland Barthes’s interrogation of narrative voice and Jacques Derrida’s theory of trace, I contend that author-characters expose the futility of accurate self-representation in literature. By intentionally blurring autobiography and fiction, author-characters in autofiction challenge genre boundaries while simultaneously foregrounding the instability of identity.
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non–Commercial No Derivatives License which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of the Publisher must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
