Theory and Practice of Fictionalized Autobiography

Hemingway’s Under Kilimanjaro

Authors

  • Erik Nakjavani University of Pittsburgh Author

Keywords:

Ernest Hemingway, Under Kilimanjaro, fictionalized autobiography, creative nonfiction, African safari, genre theory

Abstract

The genesis and evolution of Ernest Hemingway’s theory of fictionalized autobiography is of consequence to his nonfiction works and fictionalized autobiography is the ground on which an authentic literary genre emerges. Hemingway’s efforts to find literary approaches of alchemizing the lead of mundane experiences into the gold of a mode of “prosaics,” to use Russian literary criticism. This effort brings about the marriage between the objective realities of the personal lifeworld and their magical imaginative potentials. Hemingway, therefore, differentiates what one may generally consider as autobiographical fiction, in which the name and function of the author, narrator, protagonist, and antagonist are different from the writer’s own. In contrast, in fictionalized autobiography they all merge.

Author Biography

  • Erik Nakjavani, University of Pittsburgh

    Erik Nakjavani is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at the University of Pittsburgh. His life-long interests have been in literary theory, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. He specializes in Hemingway studies, and is a founding member of the Hemingway Society. His latest essay, “Conceptualizing Lived Experience: Mailer as an Intellectual,” appeared in The Mailer Review (2015).

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Published

2018-10-25

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2018)

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Nakjavani, Erik. “Theory and Practice of Fictionalized Autobiography: Hemingway’s Under Kilimanjaro”. The Mailer Review, vol. 12, no. 1, Oct. 2018, pp. 178–200, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/655.