Description
Book SynopsisThe title of this book,
Derivative Lives, alludes to the challenge of finding one's way within the contemporary market of virtually limitless information and claims to veracity. Amid this profusion of options, it is easy to feel lost in spaces of uncertainty where biographical truth teeters between the real and the imaginative. The title thus also points to the prolific market of biographical novels that openly and intentionally play in the speculative space between the real and the fictional. Drawing on theories of risk and uncertainty,
Derivative Lives considers the surge in biofiction in Spain and globally, relating literary expression to concepts such as circumstantiality, derivatives, speculation, and game studies.
Trade ReviewA brilliant analysis of the Spanish biofictional novel within the wider context of contemporary thought. Virginia Rademacher examines research from both within and beyond the field of literary criticism to show how biofiction as a genre challenges the notion of history as an abstraction or an irretrievable reality by depicting how real people deal with specific historical situations. Rademacher's command of modern history, intellectual currents, and the Spanish bio-novel is indeed impressive. * Bárbara Mujica, author of Frida, Sister Teresa, I Am Venus and Miss del Río *
With case studies drawn from some of contemporary Spain’s most exciting writers, this is an original and compellingly theorized exploration of how biofiction works to understand, vex, exploit, or otherwise experiment with questions of uncertainty, identity, and risk in the supermodern present. Rademacher engages playfully and productively with disciplinary discourses emerging from fields such as law, finance and economics—which similarly contend with competing claims to truth and value—and dives deep into the circumstantial and speculative games that authors play when they write fiction about reality. * Samuel Amago, Professor of Spanish, University of Virginia, USA *
Considering the rich field of Spanish biofiction in relation to concepts of uncertainty, speculation, and risk in a post-truth age, Rademacher’s
Derivative Lives establishes an exciting interdisciplinary nexus. In the course of this study, Rademacher expands the scope and ambition of biofiction studies. * Bethany Layne, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, De Montfort University, UK *
Derivative Lives nos ofrece una profunda, amena, necesaria y muy interesante indagación de las borrosas fronteras entre lo real y lo ficticio, en un mundo cada vez más impreciso en donde ni siquiera la propia identidad resulta fiable.
Derivative Lives offers us a deep, entertaining, necessary, and very interesting investigation of the blurred borders between reality and fiction, in an increasingly imprecise world where even one’s own identity is not reliable. * Rosa Montero, writer, author of El peligro de estar cuerda (2022) *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction SECTION I The Circumstantial Case: Chasing Criminals/Tracing Traumatic Histories 1. Making the Circumstantial Case: Reasonable Doubt and Moral Certainty in Javier Cercas’
Soldiers of Salamis 2. Fugitive Biofictions: Antonio Muñoz Molina’s
Like a Fading Shadow and Gabriela Ybarra’s
The Dinner Guest SECTION II Speculative Truths and Derivative Fictions 3. Entertaining the What-Ifs in Rosa Montero’s
The Madwoman of the House and
the Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again 4. Fraudulent Pasts and Fictional Futures in Javier Cercas’
The Impostor and Adolfo García Ortega’s
The Birthday Buyer SECTION III Critical Play in Biofictional Games 5. Playing for Real: Simulated Games of Identity in Lucía Etxebarria’s
Courtney and I and
Truth is Nothing but a Moment of Falsehood Appendices to Chapter 5 6. Literary Afterlives and Paratextual Play: Elvira Navarro’s
The Last Days of Adelaida García Morales and Antonio Orejudos’s
The Famous Five and Me Coda: Biofiction’s Antidotes to Post-Truth
Endnotes Bibliography Index
