... straightforwardly autobiographical account. Borrowing the concept of “autothanatography” from Jacques Derrida and others, this essay explores how Vivier’s works inscribe a relationship to death, to the end and impossibility of autobiography, into its very origin. I argue that such an inscription occurs prominently...

... autobiography, we might say, is also an autothanatography (fig. 3).14 The mother/son imbrication, then, both in life and in death overdetermines the troublesome and much debated structure of the Confessions. Unlike Derrida, Augustine writes after the fact of his mother's life but the plot moves relentlessly...

... will write death: write to it, write of it, perform it. It is always there, haunting these words, giving them as they give it. I have arrived at this writing-this autothanatography-through a death that is and is not properly my own. I had an abortion. This statement mimics "I had a child," calling to memory...