Modern Bulgarian literature

The article explores three contemporary Bulgarian novels in order to underline the characteristics that allow us to use the genre definition “documentary novel”. Based on Philippe Lejeune’s 1975 definitions of “autobiography” and “novel”, the article analyses the identity of the three narrative persons in the novels in order to define the distance they have with the two genres. Later, other bordering genres are discussed in order to establish the space that the documentary novel occupies. Certain literary approaches used in the novels are discussed, serving to present the narrative’s fictional side. The article concludes that the documentary novel as such has its place in literature, maintaining at the same time strong bonds with extra-literary genres.

The paper centers around a possible line of interpretation of literature-reality intercourse with the help of author-figure mediation. The autobiographical disposition of the latter in A ballad to Georg Hennih fictional space is what scientific lenses are set upon. Considered the opening first part of an autobiographical trilogy (followed by Germany – a dirty story, and A love story autopsy), A ballad to Georg Hennih short novel inaugurates autofiction as Victor Paskov’s literary style and means of recognition. The ballade’s world is based on a playful dialogue between fictional and real, skillfully handled by Paskov’s own maneuver of questioning author’s status in the twofold manifestation of self-revealing and being a novel’s character. The self-revealing dimension is imbued with childhood trauma thus launching the long-term journey of answering the essential question “Who am I really?”