The Autobiography Effect

Download or read book Present Pasts written by Dervila Cooke and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first in-depth study of the twelve Modiano texts specifically concerned with life-writing in autobiographical and biographical-cum-historiographical projects. The texts covered range from La Place de l’étoile (1968) through to La Petite Bijou (2001). Close textual analysis is combined with a theoretical approach based on current thinking in autobiography, biography, and reader-response. Modiano’s use of autofiction and biofiction is analysed in the light of his continuing obsession with both personal trauma and History, as well as his problematic relationship with his paternally-inherited Jewish links. His view of identity (of self and other) is thus discussed in relation to a particular literary and socio-historical context– French, postmodern, post-World War II, and post-Holocaust.