Where Biography Meets Fictionality: Imaginative Incursions in Anna Funder's Wifedom and Kiera Lindsey's Wild Love.
Biographers set up an expectation, often described as a 'truth contract', with their readers to present a non-fiction account of a life. But, as Julia Novak asks, how much authorial imagination will 'contaminate' a biographic narrative and transform it into a novel? This question continues to perple...
| Published in: | Journal of Language, Literature & Culture Vol. 72; no. 2; pp. 97 - 115 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Aug2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=188923727&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 188923727 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 20512856 G9AG jtl: Journal of Language, Literature & Culture issn: 20512856 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2025 vid: 72 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 188923727 10.1080/20512856.2025.2548872 ppf: 97 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 451KB tig: atl: Where Biography Meets Fictionality: Imaginative Incursions in Anna Funder's Wifedom and Kiera Lindsey's Wild Love. aug: au: Chappell, Elizabeth affil: School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, Australia su: Wifedom (Book) Wild Love (Book) Funder, Anna Lindsey, Kiera Biography (Literary form) Paratext sug: subj: Wifedom (Book) Wild Love (Book) Funder, Anna Lindsey, Kiera Biography (Literary form) Paratext keyword: Adelaide Ironside Anna Funder biofiction Biography Eileen O'Shaughnessy fictionality Kiera Lindsey paratexts truth-contract ab: Biographers set up an expectation, often described as a 'truth contract', with their readers to present a non-fiction account of a life. But, as Julia Novak asks, how much authorial imagination will 'contaminate' a biographic narrative and transform it into a novel? This question continues to perplex writers, publishers and readers, and is highlighted by two recent works by Australian authors who challenge definitions of biography through their style and paratextual inclusions. Anna Funder's Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life and Kiera Lindsey's Wild Love, the life of Australian colonial artist Adelaide Ironside, are marketed as biographies, yet both display fictional passages and novelistic techniques alongside referential protocols. Each author grapples with the need for imaginative incursions to recover a past life with contextual and sensory detail to engage readers in the lives of their subjects. By applying Dorrit Cohn's signposts of fictionality, this article contests the definitions of a fact/fiction binary in evaluating biographical narratives. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Language, Literature & Culture is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Language, Literature & Culture holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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