Blindness and the Sense of the World in Frances Browne’s Autofiction
Abstract
Prolific a writer as she was, an Irish blind writer Frances Browne significantly never wrote an autobiography. Yet, in various places, and above all in letters to the editors of journals to which she regularly contributed, she did compose autobiographical accounts of her life. One striking parallel to her fictional creation is her sense of the relationship between the past and the moment of writing.
Whereas earlier formulations of the definition of autofiction in some cases pose as many obstacles as existing cultural assumptions, there is merit in employing its notion to explore the implications of Browne’s fictional work within the life writing genre. By reading Browne’s novel, My Share of the World, as a precursor of autofiction with its expanded definition, this article suggests that some promising pathways will open up for representing disability, foregrounding the critique of autobiography from the claimed position of the blind woman author.
Originating in, but now extending well beyond French literature, what is referred to as autofiction has undeniably found an audience, especially among contemporary readers familiar with postmodernism and poststructuralism, and much of the scholarly discussion focuses on to what degree autofiction moves beyond traditional auto/biography and its practices to offer a new model of life writing.
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