The ‘Authorial Other’ in the Autobiographical Social Novel.

Other (Philosophy) in literature; Autobiographical fiction; Social novels; Literary criticism; Creative writing

This article redefines the concept of the ‘Other,’ a term typically used in literary criticism. The writer's new conceptualised definition of the ‘Other’ refers more to the composition of creative writing, namely that this ‘Other’ is a reimagined version of the Author him/herself as a fictional character. This ‘Other’ is carefully reimagined and meticulously created, per novel, so that it is complementary for a novel's intended audience, tone, plot, character identity, and genre. More specifically, this article discusses the purposeful creation of an authorial ‘Other’ in a postmodern family saga novel that also contains ample social commentary and is written as a successful ‘genre mash-up.’ Novels of this complexity are written by postmodern social fictionists such as Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Jonathan Franzen, whose family saga novels all contain much ‘factionalised’ social commentary about contemporary America and whose novels are truly genre-spanning. As examples to illustrate the creative process of writing the ‘Other’ in social fiction that is mixed with elements of autobiography, the work of these three novelists is analysed in detail, along with respective biographical details of these novelists' lives, which they have each creatively implemented into their novels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]