Elsewhere, yet nowhere : John Burnside’s autofictions and strategies of (dis)placement

Abstract

In reading John Burnside’s three autofictions, A Lie About My Father (2006), Waking Up In Toytown (2009), and I Put A Spell On You (2014), this article aims at discussing how spaces and personal remembering, as well as potential displacements, are interlinked endeavours in recollective narratives. As a key argument, the notion of spacing yet displacing the self through writing and re-writing furthers the autofictional endeavour of self-narrative as a non-linear, fragmented enterprise. This paper therefore sheds light on the interconnections of autobiography and autofiction, space and memory, as well as seriality and writing.