Śmierć autora i jego żywoty

Writers’ biographies (written about writers by writers) constitute a genre with very long historical roots, which has flourished in the last twenty-five or thirty years. This is undoubtedly linked to lifting of post-structuralist ban concerning author as person, so that it became possible, at least France, legitimize biographical writing again. We date this revival mid-1980s, when Duras, Robbe-Grillet and Sollers all published (auto)biographical texts, whose status certainly problematic, but nonetheless worthy careful attention. Immersed Romantic anthropology, various transpositions numerous nostalgias, general ambiguity appears key characteristic productions 1980s. What we have here kind spectacle, figure re-enters stage. At same time, “biographical illusion” (Bourdieu). Many contemporary biographers know ‘truth’ other can only be grasped through play on forms (or memory forms), if not, evoke Lacan, “a line fiction”.