NOVEL AND AUTOFICTION: CONVERGENCES, TENSIONS, AND UPDATES OF THE FORM

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the novel and autofiction within the framework of contemporary literary theory, focusing on the rise of self-narratives and the challenges they pose to the traditional boundaries between fiction and reality. Considering the increasing prominence of life-writing in recent decades, the discussion is guided by a central question: does autofiction break with the novel, or does it update and expand its formal possibilities? To address this issue, the study revisits key concepts of novel theory, emphasizing its historically open, hybrid, and adaptable nature, capable of absorbing diverse discourses and modes of subjectivation. It then maps the convergences between the novel and autofiction, highlighting shared principles such as dialogism, formal instability, and the permeability between lived experience and invention. The argument developed throughout the article suggests that autofiction does not constitute a structural rupture with the novel; rather, it operates as one of its most contemporary expressions, renewing and reshaping the genre in the twenty-first century.