Numerous parallels exist between the novel Things of Childhood by Lojze Kovačič (1928–2004), which was published in 2003, and the novel Childhood by Nathalie Sarraute (1902–1999), which was published in 1983. Besides the numerous story parallels, which are evident already in the titles of both novels, the two novels also feature narrative parallels: modernist poetry, narrative description and dialogue as a means of updating the story, fragmentariness, essayisation and the unreliable narrator stemming from the narrow perspective of a child. They also share the same genre, as both are modernist, autobiographical and family novels. The authors relive their childhood through fragmentation in poetry. They differ in the maternity of biological mothers and other characters that perform tasks of nurture and upbringing in the process of growing up of the protagonists, which will be the main focus of my thesis.
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