Wednesday, April 25, 2012

More about truth and fiction …

… The Rumpus Interview With Elif Batuman - The Rumpus.net. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


Truth and fiction are, obviously, not opposites, or even contraries. Good fiction conveys truth. But if you claim that your work is strictly factual and it turns out not to be, you can't fall back and say that you were employing some kind of fictional enhancement. Memoir can be ambiguous, since you are only claiming to be writing about what you remember as you remember it (though even there a little verification is useful). But if your claim is documentary, check your facts carefully.

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