Marguerite Duras and the autofiction built by rewriting

Abstract

Over the last few decades, several academic studies have been devoted to the reflection upon autobiographical aspects of Marguerite Duras’ works, particularly The Lover, which since its publication in 1984 has received different labels, such as autobiography, autobiographical novel and autofiction. We understand that the possible autobiographical aspects of this novel cannot be analysed in isolation. Throughout Marguerite Duras’ writing production, her texts make reference to one another, in a singular process of intertextuality from which emerges the figure of a common “self” to all these texts. To think, therefore, in self-writing or autofiction in her work makes sense when the rewriting process is taken into consideration, for being a characteristic feature in Duras’ production. With the help of autobiography and autofiction theoreticians framework, this paper aims at analysing the construction of the subject who claims the ‘self’ in Duras’ fictional universe, built by her rewriting which allows the interpretation of the relation between the texts, rather than an isolated text as autofiction.