Reclaiming and Renegotiating Authenticity Through Autofiction: Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You

Autofiction, often regarded as an innovative means of self-exploration and self-presentation, invites discussions of authenticity. Highlighting the complexity and social value of the notion, I suggest that authenticity is not an outdated ideal that autofiction seeks to transcend; rather, autofiction opens up ways to critically engage with this notion. This potential is realized in Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You, a work of “biographical autofiction” that proclaims to be “fiction” but does not contain any perceivable elements of invention. Critiquing Genette’s dismissal of biographical autofiction as “veiled autobiography,” I argue that the paratextual label of “fiction” is not a gesture of evasion but a liberating leap that makes space for the author to renegotiate authenticity, a notion that is highly at stake in the narration of domestic violence but systematically denied to female survivors. A close analysis of the work informed by this new metaphor shows that Kandasamy negotiates four forms of authenticity with her autofictional performances: a partial authenticity that recognizes female survivors’ need for self-protection, an emotional authenticity that registers the psychological repercussions of domestic violence, an emergent authenticity that gives women the space to heal and grow, and a collective authenticity that highlights the importance of culturally sanctioned narrative templates. Kandasamy’s work highlights the need to continually scrutinize and renew our ideas of authenticity and shows the constructive role autofiction can play in this process.