Are novelists obliged to tell the story of their private life?

My Dark Vanessa author Kate Elizabeth Russell was driven to reveal details of her past when accused of inauthenticity – but should we be seeking the truth elsewhere?Our world, more than at any time in history, is all about stories. Snapchat feeds capture your entire day, Instagram users meticulously curate their pages and stories, and detailed Twitter threads recount what happened on the morning commute. We are storytellers, narrators, transmitters of tales – occasionally those of others but mostly our own. We’ve been assured we all have a story and what we need is the courage and space to tell it. But these days it’s not enough just to have an experience, or even just to share it. People feel compelled to claim stories, to plant a flag and proclaim: “This is mine.” Instinctively, some people privilege their own experience over any other; that their story is always the “authentic” one.When that story is rooted in trauma, a whole host of ethical implications suddenly come into play. How do we tell the story of such experiences? Why should we? To what extent does it desensitise the audience to future stories? And perhaps the most pertinent question, at least in this Era of Authenticity, is: who gets to tell it?That a writer could have experienced the trauma their novel narrates has long been assumed, but demand to prove it feels new Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2020-03-02 06:00:36 UTC ]

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