Abstract
This chapter traces Brooke-Rose’s engagement with her resistance to life-writing, which she tries to overcome in Remake and Life, End of by turning these autobiographical texts into narrative experiments critically monitored by metapoetic reflections and shaped by the same defamiliarising techniques used in her novels. However, this crossing of the boundary between autobiography and fiction is not geared towards extending the form of autobiography but to expose and question staple generic distinctions altogether. The numerous intertextual connections between Brooke-Rose’s different works dislodge generic classifications and demarcations in favour of an open network of generically ambiguous texts bearing the imprint of her lifelong experiments with language and fiction.
I have always felt a deep prejudice against both autobiography and biographical criticism, at least with reference to writers. . . . Nevertheless I wrote an autobiography. Why? Simply because in old age one starts reminiscing? No. The reason was in fact autobiographical. . . . my publisher urged me to write an autobiography. 1
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Kilian, E. (2017). “My Publisher Urged Me to Write an Autobiography”: Christine Brooke-Rose’s Experiments with Life Writing. In: Boldrini, L., Novak, J. (eds) Experiments in Life-Writing. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55414-3_4
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