« Le noeud gordien de ma propre entreprise » L’autofiction selon Philippe Vilain

Abstract

Philippe Vilain is one of the few writers to designate autofiction as his preferred genre and, what is more, to subscribe in his essays to Doubrovsky’s most restricted conception of the genre, which combines fiction and homonymity (the author and protagonist must share the same name). Vilain nonetheless relaxes this definition by allowing the narrator-character to remain anonymous: this is ‘‘anomalous’’ autofiction. This article examines the theoretical validity of this thesis and its implementation in Vilain’s novels.