Metafiction

Metafiction is a type of literary prose that consciously draws attention to its own fictionality and to the process of its own making, breaking the illusion of reality (the 'baring of the device'). Metafiction reflects on the nature of literature, the role of author and reader, and the boundary between invention and reality. The term was introduced by William Gass (1970), and the theory was developed by Patricia Waugh ('Metafiction,' 1984) and Linda Hutcheon ('Narcissistic Narrative'). The devices of metafiction are the author's inset commentary, address to the reader, the 'novel within a novel,' characters aware of their literary nature, the rupture of the plot, and play with genre conventions. Historical precursors are Cervantes's 'Don Quixote' and Laurence Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy.' Metafiction is a characteristic feature of postmodernism. In Ukrainian literature, metafictional strategies were embodied by Yuri Andrukhovych, Yuri Izdryk ('Wozzeck'), and Serhiy Zhadan.