NATHALIE SARRAUTE’S CHILDHOOD, WHAT RESIDES BEHIND THE TEXT

Abstract

A work which might seem autobiographical at first sight, Nathalie Sarraute’s Childhood is absolutely not an autobiography in the traditional meaning of the word. This study is examining the meaning of the autobiographical itself as well as the fate of this genre in the second half of the past century. On the basis of certain understandings concerning a new kind of autobiography, which Dubrovsky calls autofi ction, and some psychoanalytical theories, we try to discover not only the nature but also the grounds of the connection between the writer and his work. Moreover, we raise the question whether the novel and the autobiography in the era of postmodernism tend to become one, we try to determine the origin of a literary work and the causes of it’s creation, and all this on the example of this unusual autobiography by Nathalie Sarraute, who, as we conclude in the end, made writing itself the subject, the cause and the purpose of her creation.