ABSTRACT
Autobiography is inevitably seen as a male genre. This is perhaps especially true of artistic autobiography and autobiografiction. An autobiographical novel may exaggerate or condense events, while a text labelled as memoir is presumed to offer a true record of experience. J. M. Coetzee’s novels represent the difficulties faced by any texts that attempt to blur the lines between fiction and autobiography. The use of autobiografiction to comment on the confusion between public and private lives is found in the work of a younger generation of American experimental writers. In demonstrating the extent to which every text is free to negotiate the boundaries, autobiografictional work requires a personal response from the reader that takes account of both aesthetic and ethical ambiguities. In a variety of forms, ranging from romans a clef and fictionalised autobiographies to fiction presented in the form of autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs, and texts that problematise all categorical distinctions, contemporary writers renegotiate the value of the ‘real’.
