Broadcasting the self : autofiction, television and representations of authorship in contemporary French literature

Abstract

This article examines the rise of autofiction as literary notion and cultural phenomenon in modern France. The past decades saw the rise of texts which not only challenge the convention of traditional autobiography and its reader-writer ‘pact’, but also integrate visual modes of representation in the fabric of the narrative, as tools and metaphors for the process of projection of the self that is autofiction. As television became an essential medium to promote and disseminate the figure of the intellectual in France, it has also been used as a tool to shape and manipulate the notion of authorship in life-writing. Drawing on examples including Duras’s televised performance and more recent texts by Beigbeder, Angot, Nothomb and Delaume, this article examines the use of the televised medium as site of contention for authors who have aptly exploited the potential of the small screen within and outside their textual productions. The conclusion asks if autofiction can be perceived as a literary equivalent of reality television.