The image of unreliable narrator in Sian Hughes’ novel ‘Pearl’ according to memory studies’ optics

The study aims to identify the specifics of the phenomenon of unreliable narration in the modern British novel ‘Pearl’ by Sian Hughes. The paper examines the gradually revealing narrator’s unreliability that casts doubt on the entire story told, which turns out to be an experience of childhood trauma (mother leaving home forever) and an attempt to reconstruct events of the distant past with the absolute impossibility of verifying this incident. The study also reveals similarities and differences between modern autofictional texts and the novel ‘Pearl’. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in domestic and foreign literary criticism, this novel becomes the object of analysis, which allows the researcher to reveal innovative strategies of using the image of unreliable narrator in contemporary literary process. As a result, it was found that the fundamental difference between S. Hughes as a representative of the older generation from modern 30- and 40-year-old writers, mainly becoming authors of autofiction, lies in her belief in the possibility of commemoration and memorialization, in the individual ability to (re)assemble reality, which will destroy postmodern discreteness, fragmentation and fundamental haphazardness of the picture of the world.