Metanarrative Autofiction: Critical Engagement with Cultural Narrative Models

Abstract

This chapter examines a new form of autofiction that has emerged in the twenty-first century, which the chapter proposes to call metanarrative autofiction. Such writing displays awareness of how our ways of narrating our lives are socially, culturally, and historically conditioned. The chapter conceptualizes metanarrativity in this context as a form of self-reflexive storytelling that makes narrative its theme, reflecting not only on the process of its own narration but also on the roles of cultural narrative models in making sense of our lives. The chapter discusses affordances of metanarrative autofiction in Annie Ernaux’s Les Années (The Years) (2008), Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Min kamp (My Struggle) (2009–2011), and the Finnish singer-songwriter Astrid Swan’s Viimeinen kirjani (2019, My Last Book).