“MICHELE MARI’S LEGENDA PRIVATA (2017) AS HORROR-AUTOBIOGRAPHY”

Back to Page Authors: Giovanna Sansalvadore

---

Keywords: Michele Mari, Autobiography, Family History, Gothic Fiction

---

Abstract: This study will investigate postmodern fictional form in the later works of Michele Mari. who has centred his critical eye on the interaction between history and its re-elaboration as trope of reference for contemporary narrative style. In an emblematic example of this technique, Michele Mari’s latest book, Legenda Privata (2017), surprisingly fuses the genre of family fiction with the Gothic literary tradition, thereby turning the genre of the family history away from its more usual elegiac tendencies, to a mode which exteriorises the latent expectations of trauma and darkness, normally attested to in the Gothic memorial retelling of the past. My study will attempt to unravel the intricately woven literary strands which make up the book’s structure, far more important than its potentially banal themes: family history, valiant mother, famous but distant father, oppressed/depressed son interposing himself between the threatening and threatened parental figures. Therefore, this ‘horror autobiography’ is a far more complex work than the autobiographical work normally is and merits further detailed analysis.

---