In my master's thesis I discussed four Slovenian autobiographical novels – Zaznamovana (Nedeljka Pirjevec), Otroške stvari (Lojze Kovačič), Otroštvo (Miha Mazzini) and Belo se pere na devetdeset (Bronja Žakelj). In them, I was primarily interested in the image of the family as perceived by the narrator; what is the source of his misfortune, how does it affect him and in what way does it mark him. Since all the novels mentioned were at least partly autobiographical, I also studied the characteristics of the autobiographical novel, which I distinguished from the autobiography, while at the same time I was trying to determine the relationship between fiction and reality.
I have found that all four novels are autobiographical in which description, fragmentation, the unreliable narrator, and a child’s perspective play an important role. Through the analysis of individual novels, I studied all the mentioned concepts in more detail and found that all the protagonists are unhappy – in one way or another – because of their family; due to this, Bubi has the least trauma, experiencing neglect and poverty in the family, while in other novels the narrator experiences more severe, traumatic experiences; in Belo se pere na devetdeset Bronja’s mother dies because she has cancer, and the boy in Otroštvo is neglected and verbally and physically abused within the family, and he also experiences sexual abuse in the immediate environment.
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