The Autofictional Turn, Playful Memories of Trauma and the Post-Dictatorship Generations

Abstract

This chapter introduces the conceptual and historical framework of the book and discusses the “autofictional turn” in post-dictatorship Argentina. This “turn” is the emergence, in the new millennium, of films, novels, blogs, artworks and plays, many by children of disappeared and persecuted parents, which are characterized by the establishment of a simultaneous reading pact based around stories that draw on true events (the autobiographical pact) but which are presented with imaginary backgrounds (the fictional pact). Autofictions do not claim to reconstruct the past exactly as it happened but instead bring to light the difficulties that extreme experiences such as wars and dictatorships have posed to language and memory over the course of the last century. In addition, the chapter examines the other key feature of these memories—namely, their playful aesthetics—a trait that challenges more conventional ways of bearing witness to trauma.