Truth and Autobiography: Forms of Criticism, Forms of Fiction

Abstract

This essay seeks to present the different formulations surrounding the fold between autobiography and lived experience, or even between lies, life, and work. Thus, Silviano Santiago, both a theorist and a fiction writer, emerges as an operator for the ensuing discussions. Starting from some fundamental texts for discussions around the autobiographical genre, an attempt is made, in an initial manner, to trace some lines that guide the debate about its historical formation. In this way, the relationship between truth and falsehood reveals itself as a central dimension for the critical scrutiny of the limits and horizons of this written form. By making use of diverse, inherently heterogeneous registers, in the end, it is necessary to engage with the almost secular problematization of the status of autobiographical writing and with the way in which this genre is called into question and jostled in certain incursions by Silviano Santiago.