Patricia López-Gay. Ficciones de verdad. Archivo e narrativas de vida

• Main Author: Jobst Welge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Groningen Press 2020-12-01
• Series: European Journal of Life Writing
• Subjects: book review
• Online Access: https://ejlw.eu/article/view/37342

Some of the most interesting narrative literature recently produced in Spain is distinguished by the incorporation of auto- or bio-fictional elements (for instance, Miguel Ángel Hernández, El dolor de los demás [2018]; Pablo Martín Sánchez, Diario de un viejo cabezota [2020]). Not surprisingly, this ‘trend’ has already led to many academic studies on different aspects of autobiographical fiction. The new book by Patricia López-Gay is an extremely valuable contribution to this field, since it charts in a convincing and sophisticated manner the specifically Spanish genealogy and phenomenology of this literary tendency, covers the work of representative writers in a synthetic fashion, and develops an original argument about the intersection of auto-fictional prose and the narrative configuration of the archive.