Event overview
Cancelled* Guido Mazzoni discusses Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux’s re-invention of autobiography and Jarred McGinnis talks about his acclaimed novel The Coward
*This seminar has had to be cancelled due to UCU strike action.
Guido Mazzoni will be rescheduled to a new event dedicated to Annie Ernaux in the next academic year.
Jarred McGinnis will be keynote speaker at a new Auto / Bio / Fiction event in June 2023, focused on auto- and biofictional creative writing.
Full details will be announced as soon as we have finalised them. For information, keep an eye on: https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-auto-bio-fiction-series-guido-mazzoni-and-jarred-mcginnis/
Guido Mazzoni, “Like everyone else. Annie Ernaux’s The Years”
In this talk I will discuss Annie Ernaux’s The Years (Les Années, 2008), a text for which Ernaux invented a new way of understanding autobiography by mixing personal history and collective history, speaking impersonally or in the first person plural, and reinventing the use of tenses.
The Years is both a collective historical novel and Ernaux’s personal search of lost time: “a slippery narrative composed in an unremitting continuous tense, absolute, devouring the present as it goes, all the way to the final image of a life […]: a sort of impersonal autobiography”, as we read in the last pages of the book.
Jarred McGinnis, “Alchemizing the self for fiction”
Question: What’s worse than being in a wheelchair?
Answer: Being a fuck-up in a wheelchair.
After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with the father he hasn’t spoken to in ten years.
Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he’s an idiot, it’s a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?
As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past – the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he’s caused himself and others – and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don’t always have to stay broken after all.
The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It’s about how the world treats disabled people. And it’s about how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives – and try to find a happy ending. (From the back cover of The Coward)
After reading from his work, Jarred McGinnis will be in conversation with Natasha Bell.
Attendance is free but booking is required to receive a link to attend.
This seminar will be chaired by Carole Sweeney.
More information on the speakers and the event
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Feb 2023 | 5:30pm - 7:15pm |
Accessibility
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