Kurt Vonnegut and the honesty of literature: metafiction, autofiction and awareness

Abstract

The present paper deals with and reflects upon the meaning and reception of autofiction and metafiction in Kurt Vonnegut’s work, especially in the novels Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade (1969) and Timequake (1997), and its intertextual links with other texts and biographical documents. The simultaneous presence of fact and fiction is connected to a disruption of the illusion posed by fiction while maintaining the freedom and possibilities that poetic license grants, so as to try new forms of engagement and approach to the reader. The confusion between the author as a narrative entity and the real person, in a context of great exposure through the media, has a bearing on the trivialization of human life and issues, such as war. Hence the challenge for fictional narratives to find new forms of expression, which entails reflective strategies aimed at revealing the dangers of ontological hierarchies.