Secondary abstract: |
The present work is dealing with the problem of the relationship between the (literary) autobiography and the autobiographical novel or in other words the relationship between fiction and reality in the autobiographical genre as well as the function of the autobiographical element in the works of the contemporary Slovene female novelists. First, the analysis of the narrative texts takes into account four autobiographical texts taken from the female literary tradition: Zofka Kveder, Vladka Mitka Mirica (1978), Alma Karlin, Solitary Journey into Distant Lands (2006), Ilka Vašte, Images of My Life (1974), and Angela Vode, Hidden Memory (2005). The following works of the contemporary Slovene female authors are treated: literary autobiography written by Mira Mihelič, Hours of My Days (1985), novel by Nada Gaborovič, Malahoma (1989), autobiography by Lidija Asta, Lidija (1992), the two novels by Nedeljka Pirjevec, The Labelled (1992) and The Saga about a Suitcase (2003), the three novels by Brina Svit, The Death of the Slovene Prima Donna (2000), Moreno (2003) and Coco or The Golden Gate (2008), the two novels by Suzana Tratnik, My Name is Damjan (2001) and The Third World (2007), a diary novel by Vesna Milek, Kalipso (2000), a diary by Vesna Vuk Godina, Hawaii on Paper (2005) and the novel by Eva Pacher, The Magnificent Clone (2005). The analysis of these texts has shown that there are no reliable criteria at the textual level in order to distinguish fiction from non fiction and that no autobiography is able to avoid neither the concealed facts nor the certain level of fiction. The reality is a composite part of fiction and visa versa. The autobiography where the female author writes down her whole life story based on events and experience is not suited to the modem way of writing any more. It has been succeeded by the autobiographical novel. |