Autofiction is a term used in literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 to refer to a form of fictionalized autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

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Serge Doubrovsky

Serge Doubrovsky

Serge Doubrovsky is a French writer and 1989 Prix Médicis winner for Le Livre brisé. He is also a critical theorist.-Biography:Along with publishing seven volumes of autobiography, he is known as a critical theorist...

 coined the term in 1977 with reference to his novel Fils. Autofiction combines two paradoxically contradictory styles: that of autobiography, and fiction. An author may decide to recount his/her life in the third person, to modify significant details or 'characters', using fiction in the service of a search for self. It has parallels with faction, a genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 devised by Truman Capote

Truman Capote

Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

 to describe his novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood is a 1966 book by Truman Capote.In Cold Blood may also refer to:* In Cold Blood , a 1967 film and 1996 miniseries, both based on the book* In Cold Blood...

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Autofiction is principally a genre associated with contemporary French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 authors, among them: Christine Angot

Christine Angot

Christine Angot is a French writer, novelist and playwright.-Life:Born Pierrette, Marie-Clotilde Schwartz in Châteauroux, Indre, she is perhaps best known for her 1999 novel L'Inceste which recounts an incestuous relationship with her father.It is a subject which appears in several of her...

, Guillaume Dustan

Guillaume Dustan

Guillaume Dustan , born William Baranès, was an openly gay French writer and journalist.-Biography:...

, Alice Ferney, Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux is a French writer.She won the Prix Renaudot in 1984 for her book La Place, an autobiographical narrative focusing on her relationship with her father and her experiences growing up in a small town in France, and her subsequent process of moving into adulthood and away from her...

, Olivia Rosenthal, Anne Wiazemsky

Anne Wiazemsky

Princess Anne Wiazemsky is a French actress and novelist, of the Russian Rurikid family of Princes Vyazemsky-Counts Levashov. Through her mother, she is the granddaughter of François Mauriac. She appeared in Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar and in Godard's films La Chinoise and Week End...

, and Vassilis Alexakis. Catherine Millet

Catherine Millet

Catherine Millet is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine Art Press, which focuses on modern art and contemporary art....

's 2002 memoir The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by the art critic Catherine Millet was published in the author's native French in 2001. An English translation by Adriana Hunter was published in 2002. Sexual Life was the subject of mild controversy on both sides of the Atlantic...

famously used autofiction to explore the author's sexual experiences.

In India, autofiction has been associated with the works of Charu Nivedita. His novel Zero degree

Zero degree

Zero Degree is a postmodern novel written in 1998 by Tamil author Charu Nivedita, later translated into Malayalam and English.The novel uses a non-linear narrative structure and often shockingly sexual and/or violent content, jumping between phone sex conversations, torture scenes , love poems,...

, a path breaking work in Tamil literature,his recent Novel "Exile" are example of this genre. Japanese author Hitomi Kanehara

Hitomi Kanehara

is an award-winning Japanese novelist.-Biography:A high school drop-out since the age of 15, Kanehara pursued her passion for writing with the support of her father, Mizuhito Kanehara, a literary professor and translator of children's literature. She was born and currently lives in Tokyo.She wrote...

 wrote a novel titled Autofiction

Autofiction (novel)

Autofiction is a 2006 novel by Japanese author , translated into English by David James Karashima.This is "autobiographical fiction", a story about the life of Hitomi Kanehara and her mad obsessive love and jealousy for her young, handsome husband Shin, who does not cheat on her and does not harm...

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