Publisher's Synopsis
The genre of autobiography is a highly popular form of self-expression in contemporary
Western literature. This sudy first explores the development and established
expectations of the genre in a broad European context and then presents analyses
of five autobiographical works by living German-speaking writers accomplished
in the fictional mode - Thomas Bernhard, Elias Canetti, Max Frisch, Wolfgang
Koeppen, and Christa Wolf. The chosen works not only illustrate that present-day
forms of autobiography are diverse, they also show that the traditional aims
of the genre are no longer valid. The search for personal identity is rendered
complex through writers' changed understanding of the processes of memory, history,
personality, and fiction, with the result that not only the writer's interpretation
of his own experience is challenged, but that of the reader is too.
