Epidemic history in ‘In the Shadow of the American Dream’ – The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7203/HYBRIDA.3.21829Keywords:
self-writing, AIDS writing, epidemic narratives, stylistics, patient narrative
Abstract
In his autobiographical testimony In the Shadow of the American Dream (1998), American multidisciplinary artist David Wojnarowicz narrates his fight against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which he died of at the age of 37. What is the narrative stucture of the author’s personal diaries? How does he express an epidemic experience that is both individual and collective? By putting the text into perspective with other contemporary works, both English and French, the author of this article first examines the fragmentation and the discontinuity of the narrative. Then, she analyzes the lexicon and the metaphors by which Wojnarowicz not only describes his experience of the disease, but also makes visible a whole community of activists who struggle to exist and to assert their rights.
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Author Biography
Caroline Benedetto, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3) LACES EA 7437
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