Literature or autobiography? The author and the narrator in the short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show the relation between the author and the narrator in the short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. The roles, in which the storyteller presents himself (the polish emigrant, the writer, the journalist and the ailing old man) as well as the characters introduced to the stories have their origin in the author’s biography. They enable to identify (obviously not quite fully) the narrator with its empirical author. Herling perceives this space of his creative activity as a substitute for autobiography. This, in turn, allows not only to select the biographical material but also to discover behind the curtain of literary fiction.