Towards a Theory of Life-Writing: Genre Blending

Towards a Theory of Life-Writing: Genre Blending provides a look into the rules of life-writing genre blending proposing a theory to explain and illustrate the main regulations governing such genre play. It centers on fact and fiction duality in the formation of auto/biofictional genres. This book investigates the existing developments in this field, and explores major criticism and lines of inquiry in order to arrive at the theory of life-writing genre play textuality. The specific interplay of the different generic characteristics develops a specific textuality at the heart of it. This is termed biofictional preservation (biopreservation) to explain the textual transformation and the shaping of the auto/biofictional genres. Written for undergraduate and graduate students, but also for the general readers, the book further exemplifies the theory in the analyses of different biofictions about the American authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway featuring overlapping and juxtaposed material. This volume aims to provide a theory of this specific textuality in order to better understand and approach the process in question as well as to open up new horizons for further study and exploration.

Marija Krsteva holds a PhD degree in American literature from the Sofia University ＂St. Kliment Ohridski＂ in Bulgaria. Her area of interest involves American studies, history, culture and literature, mainly contemporary literature, life-writing and genre blending. She has worked at the University ＂Goce Delcev＂ in Stip, Faculty of Philology since 2012 where she teaches American studies. Marija Krsteva is a Hemingway Society fellow for 2017.