metafiction

[met-uh-fik-shuhn]

noun

1. fiction that discusses, describes, or analyzes a work of fiction or the conventions of fiction.

Word History and Origins

Origin of metafiction¹

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

“The Cortège,” says Hull, is “not a metafiction.”

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An occasional memoirist, essayist, translator, poet and screenwriter, Auster was best known for his metafiction — books that were characterized by their elusive narrators, chance encounters and labyrinthine narratives.

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While it’s far from unique — everyone from Miguel Cervantes to James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges to Kurt Vonnegut have played with metafiction — that doesn’t negate its potential.

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The traumas of “The New Earth” repeatedly prompt intrusions concerning long prose narratives themselves: bold forays into metafiction.

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What emerges is something special — a polyvocal novel, an essay on inherited trauma and a quiet metafiction about telling stories we don’t own.

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