AUTOBIOGRAPHY OR FICTION? – RAYMOND FEDERMAN’S SHHH: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD

Abstract

Raymond Federman, a French – American postmodern writer, created his own literary manifesto in which he announced a movement he called “surfiction”. According to Federman, surfiction does not differentiate between reality and fiction since they are interchangeable. Federman followed this closely in his works, to the point where it is impossible to state that anything he had ever written, even about his own life and childhood, is based on reality or is entirely fictitious. His novel Shhh: The Story of a Childhood is truly representative of Federman’s surfiction, since it does offer an account of his early childhood, something he refused to write about for a very long time, yet it is written in such a way that the reader is left constantly questioning the veracity of the text in front of them. This novel is Federman’s last, which is important to note because of his reluctance to address that part of his life until much later in his career. Shhh: The story of a Childhood was intended to be written as an autobiographical piece, covering a part of Federman’s life preceding one pivotal moment of his early years. The aim of this paper is to present the ways in which Federman succeeded in writing this autobiographical piece, yet still leaving room to doubt its authenticity, which is in line with his theory of surfiction. Juxtaposing different theories on autobiographical writing with Federman’s literary theory, the author of the paper aims to present the novel Shhh: The Story of a Childhood through a multi-layered lens in order to determine its classification in terms of literary genres.