Autofiction Starter Pack: A Booklist for the Spectrum In-Between
"Autofiction came to us as part of the language of commercial promotion, a way of marketing as new something almost as old as writing itself: the blending of the real and the invented.” - Christian Lorentzen
Autofiction has opened up a whole spectrum in between, blending fiction and memoir together. As a reader, it’s exciting, not really knowing what is in fact true and what is made up. As a writer, it’s a fresh take on your fiction. It’s experimental. It’s the truth. But you are also a character in the story. More than just a literary trend, autofiction “doesn’t arise from the urge to invent, to create a fictional other and tell a tale according to the rules of a particular form. It’s more a way of experiencing the Other as a being similar to oneself: “when I speak of myself, I’m speaking of you.” This hybrid form can unlock a fresh burst of creativity, as a writer, especially if you have been stuck.
To get you started, here is a list of 10 autofiction books to read now.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
A self-described failed filmmaker falls obsessively in love with her theorist-husband's colleague: a manifesto for a new kind of feminism and the power of first-person narration.
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk's Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens.
Motherhood by Sheila Heti
In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor.
Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi
A darkly funny meditation on creativity and family, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything tracks the life of a middle-aged author who is struggling to write his next novel while trying to come to grips with his son's disabilities, set against a backdrop of ecological catastrophe and escalating human insanity in contemporary Los Angeles.
10:04 by Ben Lerner
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of autotheory offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language.
My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgård
A New York Times bestseller, My Struggle: Book 1 introduces American readers to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard.
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Set in the pre-war Indochina of Marguerite Duras' childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover.
