Abstract
Concentration camp testimonies are characterized by a discursive and generic hybridism. On a discursive level, they are related to the question of truth, characteristic of historiography, as well to the question of vraisemblance, belonging to literature. As a narrative genre, testimonies have, firstly, boundaries with autobiography and memoirs, since they respect the so-called pacte autobiographique ; however the reading contract with the public is enlarged with some components typical of testimonial writing which show the genre to be « an internal pocket larger than the whole ». Certain testimonies also share features with the novel : those « fictions of the real » attempt to associate testimony with a pacte romanesque without annihilating the negative reality they are representing.
Translated title of the contribution | "An internal pocket larger than the whole". An Approach to Concentration Camp Testimonies in Terms of Genre |
---|---|
Original language | French |
Pages (from-to) | 365-379 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Questions de communication |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2004 |