“Memoir Novel” by E. Grishkovetz in Terms of Poetics of “Autofiction”

The purpose of the article is to define poetics and genre peculiarities of the memoir novel “Theater of Despair. Desperate Theater” by E. V. Grishkovetz. Results. The synthetic and even oxymoronic nature of the genre (memoirs assume the reality of what is described, “it did happen”, while novel is a work of fiction) poses specific aesthetic tasks and problematizes the author – hero – reader relationship again. Grishkovetz’s memoir novel is an example of “autofiction” genre, which is popular in the contemporary Western European and Russian literature. Its characteristic features are, first of all, the special status of the writing subject, a specific type of discourse, the verbalization of personal experience, mostly traumatic one, and the synthesis of what really happened with artistic fiction — with emphasis on extreme sincerity. Grishkovetz’s version is also complicated by author’s reflection as a writer, because this is a text about personal becoming of a writer, a stage director and an actor who created a unique kind of author’s theatre which paradoxically excludes everything “too personal” except for the events that provided background and material for Grishkovetz’s fictional prose and theatrical performances. The novel is regarded in the context of contemporary Russian literature and the recent discussions on genres of autobiography and autofiction.