Postmodernism as autobiographical commentary: "The blood oranges" and "Virginie"

Abstract

The postmodernist writer needs to be autobiographical; but autobiography, for him, has changed its meaning. Especially the "marginal" problems of the text acquire autobiographical importance, editorial questions, publication procedures, and the intellectual and emotional feedback offered by literary reviews shape the authors life and became part of his further fictional endeavors. It is in this "autobiographical" sense, that John Hawkes can be considered a postmodern writer. Ever since he started to write fiction after World War II, he has been concerned with the relationship between his narrators and himself in the role of author in the text.