A literary biography of Horacio Quiroga? Reading the lived experience through fiction in "The solitary anarchist"

Abstract

Drawing on Alain Buisine’s (1991) notion of biography as a producer of fiction, this review examines O anarquista solitário: uma biografia de Horacio Quiroga, by Wilson Alves-Bezerra, with the aim of reflecting on biography as a literary form and on its effects in narrative construction. The discussion is situated within the theoretical framework of studies on (auto)biography (Figueiredo, 2022), authorship (Foucault, 2001), and the relationships between literature and life (Olmos, 2024), engaging with critical reflections on the discursive construction of the author and the boundaries between referentiality and fiction. Methodologically, the review adopts a critical analysis of the biography’s narrative composition, paying particular attention to the biographer’s position of enunciation—as a fiction writer as well—and to the formal procedures that organize the representation of lived experience. It argues that the narrative voice moves toward the construction of a character who undergoes a trajectory akin to that of a cursed Latin American hero situated on the periphery of the literary system. The analysis demonstrates that the narrative not only reconstructs Quiroga’s life trajectory but also sheds light on the processes through which authorship is constructed, the functioning of literature as an institution, and the material conditions of the publishing market. In doing so, it invites readers to understand the biographical space as a site of literary elaboration of lived experience and of critical reflection on the narrative status of life.