Monday, September 21, 2020

Top ten books of autofiction

Nina Bouraoui was born in 1967 to a French mother and an Algerian father. She lived in Algiers until the age of fourteen before moving to France and becoming a writer. She is one of France's most renowned living novelists, and has won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Prix Emmanuel Robles, the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Renaudot, and she was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Her novel All Men Want to Know is translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins.

Onbe title on her list of ten favorite books of autofiction ("It may not be the absolute truth the author is telling, but it is her truth as she lived and experienced it") as shared at the Guardian:
To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Hervé Guibert, translated by Linda Coverdale

Guibert is the father of autofiction, the master of finding that perfect balance of truth and beauty. In this book, he tells the story of his illness, Aids, in the late 1980s. He tells of how life with the virus became an existential adventure, how it affected a generation, how it stole his friends and lovers, and how writing was for him a bulwark against death and destruction. It’s the story of an era, a turning point – when Aids transformed our relationship with desire and sexuality forever.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue