Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand
Abstract
This paper considers Vassilikos’ Γλαύκος Θρασάκης (written in 1973–4) and Axioti’s
Η Κάδμω (written in 1971–2) as postmodern narratives of exile, against the politics
of their time. What is essentially new about my reading is that it is informed by the
theoretical discourse of autofiction — a term devised by Serge Doubrovsky in 1977.
Αutofiction encompasses fictional texts that are at the crossroads between the autobiography
and the novel. Both texts oscillate between the two aforementioned writing
tropes and are based on the authors’ experience of exile. I shall investigate why two
politically engaged writers produced “autofictions” during the final years of the dictatorship.
Building upon existing argumentation suggesting that the political condition
in Greece encouraged postmodern literary modes (Papanikolaou, 2005), I shall argue
that Axioti and Vassilikos formulated a Greek version of autofiction avant la lettre in
order to articulate the identity of the writer in exile
