After Auto/Biography

In recent years one has observed the rise of new forms of (self-) life-storying, not only as a means of expressing one’s dissatisfaction with the turn-of-the-21st-century auto/biographical boom but also as a manifestation of the crisis of both the auto/biographical self and form. These new self-narratives ostensibly resist the canonical “laws” of auto/biographical writing yet eagerly embrace real events from the authors’ lives. This article discusses one of the most acclaimed examples of 21st-century (self-)life-storying, Rachel Cusk’s “Fay” trilogy — Outline (2014), Transit (2016), and Kudos (2018). Drawing on Cusk’s archival records, it focusses on the way Cusk’s auto/biographical authorial self becomes first fictionalized and then compartmentalized into the series’ fictional characters. By referring to Claire Bishop’s Artificial Hells (2012), this essay argues that Cusk’s trilogy should be recognized as employing the strategy of “delegated performances,” where the narrativization of the self is dependent on “outsourcing” the authorial self. This strategy is here seen as a signpost of new autofiction

Art · Art history · Biography · Sociology · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Narrative Theory and Analysis

• Broadcasting the Self

  Élise Hugueny-Léger•Life Writing•2016

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