Autobiographies of Others

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 anothers first-person voice, and the fraught issue of authorial responsibility. Constructions of the body are examined in relation to the material evidence of the subjects existence. Texts studied include Maloufs An Imaginary Life, Careys True History of the Kelly Gang, Ondaatjes The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Adairs The Death of the Author, Bantis Artemisia, Vzquez Montalbns Autobiografa del general Franco. Also discussed, among others: Yourcenars Memoirs of Hadrian, Tabucchis The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa, Gimnez-Bartletts Una habitacin ajena (A Room of Someone Elses).