Autofiction as instrument of self-creation: Pascal Quignard's novel Albucius (1990)

Abstract

This article explores autofiction as an instrument of self-creation based on the correlation between the author of the novel and its main character. We are focusing on the complicated link between writing and personal experience in the novel Albucius (1990) by Pascal Quignard. The role of this novel’s protagonist, the Roman rhetorician Albucius, is to retransmit the author’s reflection on both the specificities of his own artistic life and the connection between the history of Ancient Rome and contemporary reality. The autofictional aspect also allows us to trace the realization of the author’s aesthetic existence through his relation to the protagonist. Referring to the current French critique of autofiction, we suppose that writing about others in some cases implies the reflections of the author’s figure in his / her characters. Thus, this article aims to problematize the complex link between the writer’s life and his / her artistic work.