Authors

Ayako Oku¹;  ¹ Kyoritsu Women's University, Japan

Discussion

      This presentation will focus on Fox (2017), a novel by the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić (1949–2023). Though classified as a novel, the protagonist—a female writer—bears striking similarities to the author herself, leading to its possible interpretation as autofiction. In examining this work, I will concentrate on the novel's first section, which borrows its title from a short story by the Russian writer Boris Pilnyak: “A Story about How Stories Come to Be Written.”
    In this section, the female protagonist embarks on a journey to Japan, traveling through the Kansai region, in a manner that mirrors Pilnyak's own travels. As she retraces his steps, she engages in a comparative analysis of Pilnyak's story and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s novel Naomi, reflecting on the process through which stories are crafted. Moreover, she delves into a discussion on the I-novel (Shishōsetsu), a genre in Japanese literature often likened to autofiction. Notably, Ugrešić herself visited Japan in 2015 as a guest at the 9th World Congress of ICCEES. During this visit, she delivered a lecture at the special symposium “Slavic Literature Transcends Borders,” held at Kanda University of Foreign Studies in Makuhari, alongside Mikhail Shishkin (Russia) and Andrey Kurkov (Ukraine). Following this, she traveled to Kansai region, an experience that informs the events depicted in Fox. In the novel, at least in the case of Japan, the boundaries between fiction and reality blur, as the characters and settings are grounded in Ugrešić's real-life experiences.
       This presentation will explore the ways in which Ugrešić navigates the fine line between allowing a story to be written and intentionally leaving parts of the story unsaid or ambiguous. It will do so by analyzing the intersection of autofiction and the I-novel and how these genres influence the narrative structure and thematic depth of Fox.