Autofiction on demand: genealogy of a novel based on personal documents and its impact on the reader in Sujet Angot

Abstract

When Christine Angot published Sujet Angot in 1998, critics in the press and academics alike agreed the novel was based on a real love letter from the author's ex-husband Claude. This article compares the original letter, deposed within the Fonds Christine Angot at IMEC, France, to a notebook filled with notes taken from interviews between the author and Claude and other documents. From the comparative analysis, it can be said the novel not only respects the original texts: Angot reorganize the excerpts to recreate a voice, an enunciation, but not really creating new contents not already present in the documents. This process confirms the theoretical assumptions made by the author on her literature in other media. Thus, the book is perceived by the reader as a unique and authentic letter (if not from a diary) from beginning to end. Thus, method, practice, theory and the final writing all can be seen as a coherent ensemble through the genetic analysis of the creative process.