Textual deceptions : false memoirs and literary hoaxes in the contemporary era.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vice, Sue, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literary forgeries and mystifications.

Autobiography.

Physical Description:

215 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh Univ Press, 2014.

Summary:

Textual Deceptions considers a wide range of twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary works in which the relationship between text and author is not what it seems. By exploring a variety of examples of false or embellished memoirs, purportedly autobiographical novels that are in fact thoroughly fictional, as well as bogus authorial personae, Sue Vice discusses whether it is possible to judge veracity by means of textual clues alone. The accounts featured range from poetry purportedly by a Hiroshima survivor, short stories by an Albanian civil servant, and fiction by an Aboriginal woman and by a former cocaine addict. The book explores both why such texts arise, including consideration of writers' motives as well as pressures from the publishing industry, readers' tastes and contemporary social issues, and also how such texts are constructed, concluding with an assessment of their literary merit. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Fiction and Memory in Misery Memoirs 11

2 Gender Hoaxing / Rahila Khan Khan, Rahila, Anthony Godby Johnson Johnson, Anthony Godby, J. T. LeRoy LeRoy, J. T. 37

3 Indigenous Envy / Wanda Koolmatrie Koolmatrie, Wanda, Nasdijj 59

4 'Falsifying Downward' / Margaret B. Jones Jones, Margaret B., James Frey Frey, James 85

5 Self-Advertising Hoaxes / Araki Yasusada Yasusada, Araki, Jiri Kajanë Kajanë, Jiri 113

6 False and Embellished Holocaust Testimony 142.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [203]-209) and index.

ISBN:

0748675558

9780748675555

OCLC:

883701528