Autobiografías ajenas: sobre Barthes y Piglia

Abstract

Starting from Roland Barthes’ notion of « biographem », a notion he puts forward in the book Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971) and in the course The Preparation of the Novel (1978-1980), this article aims at studying a contemporary work: Los diarios de Emilio Renzi (2015-2017), by Ricardo Piglia. In the three volumes of his diaries, edited just before his death, the Argentinian author does not provide an accurate record of the events of his life; instead, these diaries point towards a real future by way of a narrative of some events that would lead him to write his oeuvre. This article seeks to analyze how Piglia, through his diaries, constructs his autobiography as if it were that of someone else, in a project similar to Barthes’ own autobiographical writings, such as Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes.