Abstract: This article examines Svetlana Alexievich's self-portrayal as a listening narrator in Secondhand Time . Drawing on theories of relational subjectivity, I demonstrate how the encounter between listening and narrating subjects in Alexievich's work frames the post-socialist transition not only as a political and economic crisis, but also as a rupture in interpersonal bonds that destabilizes the very foundations of post-Soviet self-formation. I argue that through her self-narration as a listener, Alexievich invokes the conventions of the Russian soul-baring conversation as a reparative form, reconstructing interpersonal connection between post-socialist subjects. The article thus demonstrates how post-socialist life writing can function as an aesthetic and cultural practice for restoring relationality and self-continuity in the aftermath of socialism's collapse. This article is based on a chapter from the author's RMA Thesis "Intimacies in Transition: The Formation of Post-socialist Subjectivity in Life Narratives from Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine" conducted at Utrecht University.

Abstract: Drawing on recent scholarship on metabiography, the article examines how cryptozoologist Jonathan Downes draws on subcultural ideological values to develop strategies to stabilize or destabilize the proper name in biographical discourse. Ultimately, the article argues that through paranormal concepts, Downes enacts a theory of the biographical signature that foregrounds the uncanny dynamics of how biographical texts invest proper names with meaning.

Reviewed by: False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction by Julie Rak Denisa Krásná (bio) False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction Julie Rak McGill-Queen's University Press, 2021, 274 pp. ISBN 9780228006268, $140 hardcover; ISBN 9780228006275, $40.95 paperback. Julie Rak's False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction traverses the intersection of lifewriting studies and the emergent field of mountaineering studies, unraveling the complex relationship between gender, power, and representation in the climbing world. By examining traditional mountaineering narratives, Rak exposes the cultural construct of a "traditional mountaineering body," and its role in perpetuating gender disparities within the climbing community. She shows how mountaineering literature has glorified the heroic male climber figure that embodies physical strength, mental fortitude, and a "never back down" attitude. This ideal has contributed to the perception of climbing as primarily a masculine pursuit, which marginalizes women, disabled, and non-white climbers. [End Page 415] Rak's metaphor of the "false summit" poignantly captures the struggles of climbers who are not treated as legitimate mountaineers. Likewise, for Rak, in the context of climbing, the false summit symbolizes the challenges encountered by climbers who do not conform to the ideal perpetuated by mountaineering narratives. Rak shows that women, disabled, and non-white climbers often achieve remarkable feats, conquer significant challenges, and showcase exceptional skills, yet their accomplishments are overlooked or dismissed due to deeply ingrained gender, ableist, and racial biases. False Summit primarily focuses on the gendered aspects of climbing identity, showing how gender often becomes a defining aspect of one's mountaineering journey. Rak sheds light on the positioning of women and non-white climbers, who are often feminized as spectators rather than protagonists, and their representation as unwanted others invading masculine territory. Her analysis also reveals how some cisgender women climbers have adopted masculinist discourse, further complicating the landscape of gender dynamics in mountaineering. Rak draws a striking parallel between Margaret Thatcher and American climber Bev Johnson, both of whom have dismissed feminism and embraced a masculinist discourse in the pursuit of their own ambitions and "success." Rak challenges the Western understanding of success by demonstrating how the idea of achievement in mountaineering is not an objective, universal measure but rather a social construct influenced by dominant narratives that favor hypermasculinity and perpetuate hierarchies within climbing. Furthermore, Rak illustrates that mountaineering memoirs have become integral to the national imagination by folding climbing achievements into larger narratives of national identity and pride. These narratives often tie climbing accomplishments to nationalistic discourse and notions of imperialism and colonialism, symbolizing the desire for territorial dominance and symbolic power over nature. The book highlights the interplay between sovereignty, colonialism, capitalism, and the conquest of nature by centering on three iconic mountains: Annapurna, K2, and Mount Everest. Rak emphasizes the mountains not only as physical challenges but also as potent cultural and natural sites. In particular, Rak reveals how Mount Everest has been a focal point of colonial desire, with the name "Everest" itself a colonial imposition. The mountain has been portrayed as a territory to be "conquered," relegating local people to the role of serving imperial ambitions. To Rak, this conception of Everest raises questions of authenticity and belonging, because the narrative of who belongs on Everest has been shaped by colonial and racial biases. False Summit stands as a pivotal work within lifewriting studies, as it interrogates the field's relationship to mountaineering narratives. The book underscores how mountaineering accounts integrate the art of storytelling with the act of climbing, creating a narrative tapestry that merges lived experiences, truth claims, and memory. Rak focuses on the convergence of story and climbing, examining how these accounts serve as conduits bridging climbers with the larger world. The book underscores that writing about climbing is not peripheral but intrinsic to the [End Page 416] activity. These narratives, she argues, not only recount adventures but contribute to collective understandings of climbing, identity, and human relationships with the natural world. By elucidating the connection between climbing and nonfiction writing, the book reiterates the significance of narrative in shaping climbers' senses of self and purpose. As such, these narratives operate as more than just personal stories; they function as vital cultural artifacts that...

Abstract: Aiming to nuance Paul Ricoeur's theories about temporality and identity in fiction and historiography, this article explores biofiction through the prism of Fernand Braudel and Wai Chee Dimock's notion of deep time. Building on case studies by Amin Maalouf and Colum McCann, I coin the notions of "deep-historical biofiction" and "biofictional histoire croisée" to draw attention to these contemporary writers' awareness of history's impact on individual destinies in a world of interdependent developments, which resists human agency while also inviting it to persist. Here I introduce the idea of melancholic agency. Inspired by Ian Baucom's concept of "melancholy realism" from Specters of the Atlantic and its application by Debjani Ganguly to the contemporary world novel, melancholic agency in biofiction entails preserving the emphasis placed by Michael Lackey on human agency as a distinctive attribute of the genre, while acknowledging that, especially in novels concerned with deep time, this agency often resides only in the power to bear witness, or to imaginatively restore lost truths. This suggests that the gap between the biographical and the historical novel is narrower than previously theorized in biofiction scholarship.

Gino Strada, An Italian Hero for World MedicineThe Year in Italy Ilaria Serra (bio) Una persona alla volta, the autobiography of Gino Strada, published by Feltrinelli, was one of the most popular books of 2022—so popular, in fact, that library copies were covered in plastic to reduce the wear and tear of many borrowings. The book has been so successful because its author makes Italians proud. Strada is a war surgeon and the founder of EMERGENCY (Life Support for Civilian War Victims), an influential nongovernmental organization with multiple centers in countries affected by conflict and poverty, offering high-quality and completely free health care for all. Inspired by the original Italian health care model (envied by all nations, according to Strada), the organization is now an official partner of the United Nations. Thus, Strada brings luster to the entire nation, even if the book itself depicts very grim landscapes. Dr. Gino Strada was a reluctant autobiographer. He felt uncomfortable writing the book because autobiography is "un genere che proprio non fa per me" (a genre that is not really for me). He tried to complete the book because he did not like leaving things unfinished: "mi dispiace però, perché mi sembrava di lasciare qualcosa in sospeso, incompiuto" (7; I was sorry because it seemed like I was leaving something suspended, unfinished). But indeed, he left it unfinished when he died on August 13, 2021. His second wife, Simonetta Gola, who had helped him write the manuscript, reorganized and prepared it for publication. All profits from the sales of the book go to EMERGENCY. Perhaps because of this selflessness, the author's "I" remains hidden behind a multiplicity of other subjects in this unusual autobiography. Biographical details are buried within descriptions of a suffering world that foreground places ravaged by wars and years of missionary work. The reader is never told who Teresa and Simonetta are (his first and second wives). The author assumes this information is either already known or unimportant. Even Strada's own daughter, Cecilia, only appears briefly as a young [End Page 49] girl helping with the organization, though begrudgingly, as if putting up with a little brother. Strada's youth occupies only a few pages, but for Italian readers these pages are important because they help produce a kind of comradery based on shared history and living conditions. Strada was the first to graduate in his family. He had an average childhood in a working-class neighborhood in Sesto San Giovanni (Milan), a small town among factories and chimneys. There were eleven people living under one roof, including two aunts and two cousins. His father was a factory worker. This average childhood is another reason for the autobiography's success: the author is one of us, an Italian reminiscing about old times, and tinting them with nostalgia. This shared wistfulness is signaled by asides such as "come tutti i bambini di allora" (like all children then), or by using dialect that has the power to strike an innermost Italian chord: children played outside with nothing but the suggestion to be good, in Milanese dialect "me racumandi." According to Strada, "Sesto era un buon posto per diventare grandi" (Sesto was a good place to grow up in), because of its "etica del lavoro, responsabilità, senso di comunità" (12; work ethic, responsibility, and sense of community). The opening line of the autobiography is "Sono un chirurgo" (I am a surgeon). For Strada, vocation comes first. Interestingly, Strada's formation as a doctor is steeped in the humanities. He made the unpopular choice to study classics in high school, and this training is discussed more than once. For him, medicine is a human science: "mi affascinava il lavoro del medico perché ha a che fare con gli esseri umani" (15; the work of a doctor fascinated me because it has to do with human beings). From his teacher Vittorio Staudacher, Strada learned to understand a disease by placing a hand on the patient's stomach (the cover of the book shows a close-up of his hand). In Strada's views, this human element has been forgotten in the profession: "Perché anche se non ci siamo pi...

Abstract: Una Lucha colectiva tells the life story of Lucía Castro, and explores her involvement in the fight against bank foreclosures in the last decade of the twentieth century and in the defense of women's human rights in the first two decades of the new century. Lucía's life is narrated partly by her son and daughter, but mostly by many of the women, and some men, who met her as they became involved in organizations such as El Barzón, founded by indebted farmers at risk of losing their land, or the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres, which works with mothers seeking justice for daughters who have been victims of feminicide. Each contributes a vignette describing the impact Lucía had on their lives. The result is neither biography nor autobiography, but a multivocal mosaic portraying the collective experience that emerges from these struggles. The book also includes various writings by Lucía, including autobiographical texts, speeches, and articles. In one of them, she describes herself as a lawyer, a feminist, and a theologian, bringing together in her worldview and political practice the different strands that make up the tradition of popular protest in Mexico.

Reviewed by: Dead Men Telling Tales: Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1808–1914 by Matilda Greig Scott Krawczyk (bio) Dead Men Telling Tales: Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1808–1914 Matilda Greig Oxford University Press, 2021, xvi + 250 pp. ISBN 9780192896025, $90.00 hardcover. In approaching the subfield of autobiography stemming from the Napoleonic Wars, Matilda Greig wisely narrows the focus of Dead Men Telling Tales: Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1808–1914 to the eventful Peninsular War of 1808–1814. Yet Greig's ambitious project expands out by tracing the afterlives and influences of Peninsular War memoirs, as the subtitle implies, to the doorstep of WWI. Analyzing nineteenth-century editorial interventions, marketplace demands, political machinations, and even educational agendas that shaped, reshaped, and repurposed the original narratives, Greig concludes that "a heterogenous group of Peninsular War memoirs became something resembling a literary genre, with its own tropes, parodies, and potential for re-invention and re-use" (161). Moreover, despite their reception as "quintessentially masculine tales," late-nineteenth-century editions, Greig demonstrates, having been retooled to suit Victorian sensibilities, boyhood imagination, or national pride, regularly bore the imprint (typically through familial interest and involvement) of "female labour, preference, and editorial input" (187). Exceedingly complex as a mode of autobiographical writing, the military memoir stands apart within the larger genre(s) of life writing in that it is dictated almost exclusively by events the author experienced while serving in one or more combat zones. The bookends to that central experience serve as sites of reflection—on prewar naivete (typically) and on a dense mixture of postwar emotions and memories. For disabled veterans, of which the Napoleonic wars produced unprecedented numbers owing to advances in battlefield surgery, narratives of recovery and the challenge of reintegration could well become central to the memoir. At least this is how we have come to understand autobiographical accounts of wartime experience. Yet Greig complicates this conventional understanding in a variety of productive ways, the most fertile of which is arguably the inclusion of Spanish veterans' manifestos within the generic frame of the military memoir. To bring manifestos into this important generic conversation, Greig interrogates the historical and scholarly privileging that has been accorded to British and French memoirists at the expense of Spanish and Portuguese authors. Indeed, a significant strength of Dead Men Telling Tales is its deeply researched attention to writing by both Spanish and Portuguese veterans of the Peninsular War. Greig's superb archival work supports analysis in this domain that is both groundbreaking and convincing in its revision of previous scholarship's treatment of Spanish memoirs as "an awkward counterpart to what are seen as the much richer French and British versions" (8)—and of Portuguese memoirs as virtually nonexistent. Correcting that record is the book's finest achievement, and yet there is more research to be done, a point emphasized by Greig on more than one occasion. [End Page 446] Arguably, Greig could have focused this book exclusively on the Spanish and Portuguese experience—and to good effect. We can only hope that she continues the work and perhaps delivers such a study in the future. Greig's is the voice scholarship needs for such a project. Divided into two main parts, Dead Men Telling Tales addresses authorial and textual conditions in Part I, analyzing writers, tropes, motivations, influences, and the afterlives of the veterans themselves. For instance, in Chapter 1, "The Language of War," Greig examines how the narratives of British veterans such as George Gleig (The Subaltern, 1825) and Moyle Sherer (Recollections of the Peninsula by the Author of Sketches of India, 1824) advanced stereotypes of British superiority to the Spanish and contributed to whitewashed historical representations of the war. Through careful analysis of the language deployed by such Peninsular memoirists, Greig contends that, far from the clichéd image of authors as weathered, grandfatherly figures in the twilight of life, these writers represented "a cohort of active, politicized, and sometimes demonstrably influential public actors" (54). In certain instances, these more public interventions were tied to veteran efforts to convey the devastation wrought by new and improved weaponry, particularly artillery, which...