Mirror Talk

Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography

By: Susanna Egan

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Paperback | 27 September 1999

At a Glance

Paperback
296 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 16.5 x 1.5

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Traditional autobiography tends to originate in some form of crisis and to develop some form of resolution. In contrast, much contemporary autobiography deals with unresolved crises and cannot even assume authoritative, first-person narration. Susanna Egan finds such autobiographies dialogic in form, involving the reader in generic experimentation in their pursuit of shifting, uncertain meanings. After tracing the literary experimentation of contemporary genres to the inventiveness of modernism, she explores the generic contributions of drama, film, quilting, comics, and blended literary forms to changing genres of autobiography. Egan identifies lived crises--such as diaspora, genocide, and terminal illness--as the forces behind generic experimentation, suggesting dynamic intersections between trauma and cultural expression. Mirror Talk examines work by a wide range of autobiographers, including Primo Levi, Maxine Hong Kingston, Audre Lorde, Michael Ondaatje, Tom Joslin, Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee, Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum, Breyten Breytenbach, Linda Griffiths and Maria Campbell, Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Mary Meigs, Dennis Potter, and Trinh T. Minh-ha. |Focusing on crisis as revealed in autobiographical works, Susanna Egan shows how the individual's experience sets in motion a separation of the self into objective and subjective entities that become the basis of the narrative.

Industry Reviews

[Egan s] eclecticism is courageous, her specific analyses and elucidations vigorous and vivid, and her theoretical discussions clear."London Review of Books" Susanna Egan maps the extensive territories-genres, cultures, hybrid forms-that are going to be the country of autobiography.Paul John Eakin, Indiana University [Egan_s] eclecticism is courageous, her specific analyses and elucidations vigorous and vivid, and her theoretical discussions clear."London Review of Books" [Egana[s] eclecticism is courageous, her specific analyses and elucidations vigorous and vivid, and her theoretical discussions clear."London Review of Books" Susanna Egan maps the extensive territories--genres, cultures, hybrid forms--that are going to be the country of autobiography.Paul John Eakin, Indiana University ï¿½Egansï¿½ eclecticism is courageous, her specific analyses and elucidations vigorous and vivid, and her theoretical discussions clear."London Review of Books" "Susanna Egan maps the extensive territories--genres, cultures, hybrid forms--that are going to be the country of autobiography.Paul John Eakin, Indiana University" "[EganUs] eclecticism is courageous, her specific analyses and elucidations vigorous and vivid, and her theoretical discussions clear."London Review of Books""

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Language & Linguistics Reference, Dictionaries & Guides Creative Writing & Creative Writing Guides Reference, Information & Interdisciplinary Subjects Interdisciplinary Studies General Studies Literature, Poetry & Plays History & Criticism of Literature General Literary Studies Biographies & True Stories Biographies

Autobiographies Encyclopaedias & Reference Works Reference Works Dictionaries of Biographies & People Literary Biographies

Acknowledgments
Facing Off: Genres of Life and Death
Literary Pyrotechnics: Finding the Subject among the Smoke and Mirrors
Speculation in the Auditorium: Film and Drama as Genres of Autobiography
Dialogues of Diaspora
Refractions of Mirror Talk, or the Historian in Hell: The Case of Primo Levi
Death and Its Points of Departure Coda
Talking Back: Autobiography as Mirror Talk
Notes Works
Cited Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Mirror Talk

Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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