Abstract
ABSTRACT As the dust settles in France on the two-decade-long debate on Autofiction, the two opposite sides remain unreconciled: the anti-essentialists and the rationalists haven't reached a theoretical agreement and everyone has gone on to work on different topics and projects. This might be the perfect time to take a step back and reconsider the other side's perspective. As far as I'm concerned, the concept of autofiction remains flawed, mostly, to make a long (theoretical) story short, because hybridity is cognitively unrealistic. However, among the arguments put forward by the anti-essentialists, one remains convincing and deserves in my opinion further consideration. It can be found in various forms in texts by Doubrovsky, Colonna and Vilain and consists in presenting Autofiction as an opportunity for the author to enter a fictional world while retaining her/his name, or her/his psychological/physical features; in other words, describing or even using oneself as an avatar. The purpose of this paper will be to define what an avatar really is within an artistic endeavour defined as an autofiction, its purpose beyond its playful intent and above all what distinguishes an autofictional avatar from the narrator of an autobiographical novel.
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