Within the body of "migrant" literature, the work of Marie-Celie Agnant is distinguished by its strong testimonial nature. The author herself ascribes a certain instrumental role to literature; through her fictional narratives, Agnant bears witness to the collective experiences of women in Haiti and also of female Haitian immigrants in Montreal. What, then, of the function or literary value of her work? This thesis responds to this question through the study of three works by Marie-Celie Agnant: La Dot de Sara (1995), Le Livre d'Emma (2001), and Le Silence comme le sang (1997). The analysis of the complex relationship between testimony and fiction in Agnant's writing leads to a reflection on the specific character of socially impelled female literature: women writers are driven by the imperative of memory and the desire to convey their occulted history.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-70). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-70). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

Since Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences was published in 1965, there have been many attempts to define and explain the phenomenon of the "non-fiction novel" as a unified narrative genre. Some of these attempts have been highly theoretical and scholarly, but most have been rather loose definitions referring to an extremely wide range of diverse factual narratives. Over the years, so many different works have been called "non-fiction novels" that it now seems as if the notion of such a unified genre is questionable. Surely it is not generically useful to say that such functionally distinct works as Oscar Lewis's La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (1967) and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart ot the American Dream (1971) belong in the same narrative category. The purpose of this study is to show that many of the works routinely referred to as "non-fiction novels" perform fundamentally different narrative functions and do not belong together in a unified genre. Roman Jakobson's model of communication and his notion of the "dominant function" are used to identify three functional categories into which the narratives discussed in the study logically fall: first, there are predominantly sociological works in which the referential function is the most important element of the communication; second, there are predominantly journalistic works in which the opinions of the writer or emotive function constitute the central narrative concern; and thirdly, we have works performing a dominant novelistic or aesthetic function in the sense that the secondary meanings and themes implied are the most important elements communicated. The thesis follows the following structure. In the introductory chapter, a critique of some of the major generic theories of the "non-fiction novel" as unified genre is offered. The purpose here is not to caricature what are sometimes extremely sophisticated studies. (Indeed, in my own analysis of texts, I am often indebted to the critical insights of the scholars whose theories I question in the introduction.) My purpose is merely to show that the corpus of works each writer refers to can be divided more logically between different dominant narrative functions. The introduction ends with a more detailed explanation of the adaptation of Jakobson's notion of "the dominant" and how it relates to the functional categories identified. Chapter 2 offers analyses of a group of documentary narratives that perform a dominant sociological function but have often been referred to as "non-fiction novels." The chapter starts with an analysis of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a text widely regarded as the first real American example of the "genre." This is followed by an examination of the anthropological works of Oscar Lewis: Five Families: Mexican Case Studles in the Culture of Poverty (1959), The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (1964), Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and his Family (1964) and La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty. I conclude the chapter with an analysis of the recent sociological works of Studs Terkel: Division Street: America (1968), Hard Times: An oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working: People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do (1974). In Chapter 3, the notion of subjective participation journalism is explained. This is followed by an analysis of three of the most famous and creative of the works that fall into this functional category: Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (1966), Michael Herr's Vietnam classic, Dispatches (1977), and Norman Mailer's account of a famous protest march, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (1968). Chapter 4 offers a discussion of three works that perform a dominant novelistic function in the realistic tradition of Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment. All three are based on actual murder cases, but the facts of the stories are subordinated to the novelistic themes the author wishes to abstract. They are: Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979) and Capote's In Cold Blood. From this outline, it may appear as if the study is loaded in favour of the sociological works discussed in Chapter 2. This is intentional because, although many critics have referred to them as "non-fiction novels", very little systematic and detailed analysis of these works as a corpus has been forthcoming. This long chapter is an attempt to redress the balance.

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Orientador: Marcelo Magalhães Bulhões / Banca: Arlindo Rebechi Júnior / Banca: Ornna Messer Levin / Resumo: Esta pesquisa estudo analítica e interpretativamente os textos do jornalista-escritor Paulo Barreto, mais conhecido como João do Rio (1881-1921), reunidos nos livros As religiões do Rio (1905), A alma encantadora das ruas (1908), Cinematógrafo (1909) e Vida Vertiginosa (1911). Escrevendo narrativas com características da reportagem moderna e da crônica, João do Rio, um dos profissionais de imprensa mais lidos da época, registrou um período de modernização do rio de Janeiro, então capital federal. No embate com seus textos, refletimos sobre suas contribuições - narrativas e históricas - à reportagem brasileira moderna, dissertamos, sobre como se caracterizam em sua obra a figura do narrador, a composição dos personagens, o registro dos espaços e a construções temporais. Metodologicamente, recorremos às teorias do jornalismo e da literatura / Abstract: This research studied analytically and interpretively texts of the journalist-author Paulo Barreto, know as João do Rio, one of the most widely read professional journalists of his time, experienced a period of modernization of Rio de Janeiro, then the federal capital. In the clash with their texts, this research consider on their contributions - and historical narratives - for the Brazilian modern story and discuss how to characterize his work over the figure of the narrator, the composition of the characters, the recording of temporal spaces and buildings. Methodologically, we will use the theories of journalism and literature / Mestre

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 323-355). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [208]-228). Also available on the Internet.