Autofiction in the novel El orden del mundo

Abstract

This paper analyzes El orden del mundo by Ramiro Sanchiz from the perspective of autofiction. We analyze two elements in the novel: the global idea of the book, and the narrator’s complexity. This analysis, combined with Mainguenau’s bio/graphy concept, allows us to ponder over the deconstruction of the novel and of autobiography by not accepting them as antithetical poles as far as the capacity of representing the authorial I goes. Second, we dialogue with scholars who discuss, from a theoretical perspective, the autofiction concept in El yo fabulado (Casas, 2014). This dialogue yields our suggestion to abandon the perspective that considers autofiction a literary genre or subgenre. We propose a semiotic displacement of the term autofiction towards auto/fiction, in which the slash expresses the opacity, instability and reciprocity that constitute the relationship that comes to be between the authorial I and the text when we deal with writing a manuscript that will fall somewhere within the autobiography-novel interval.