(RE)CONSTRUCTING THE SELF IN WOMEN’S AUTOFICTION: THE CASE OF SAȘA ZARE’S DEZRĂDĂCINARE

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the (re)construction of the female subject in contemporary autobiographical fiction by looking into Sașa Zare’s debut novel, Dezrădăcinare. Drawing on feminist and postfeminist theory as well as research on self-writing centred on women’s inscription of personhood in their works, this study attempts to investigate the relationship between the narrator and the narrated self, focusing on the negotiated distance between the two fictional constructs. This analysis will build on concepts such as metatextuality, autotheory, performativity, and on Lacanian and post-Lacanian feminist means of understanding the self as a product of societal and cultural discourse (as opposed to the idea of a unified self), by centring on the narrative techniques that show the narrator’s perception of herself, and struggle to represent different parts of her identity (the writer, the daughter, the girlfriend, the student and the therapy patient). As language plays an important part in rendering the feminine subject’s fragmented vision of her identity, this paper will highlight the role of personal and societal narratives in constructing an idea of the self.

Keywords

• saşa zare
• romanian literature
• autofiction
• women’s writing
• autotheory
• metatextuality.