Fictionalising real people

If the novel is a mediation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters, as writer and philosopher Milan Kundera suggests, can memoir be seen as a reflection on life through the eyes of real people? And what happens then if this mediation or reflection on life combines both imagined and real people in imagined and real places? It is this blending of memoir and fiction that interests me most and forms the basis for my PhD thesis. For my presentation today I will focus on ownership of stories and point of view. In particular, what happens when point of view in memoir or fiction is not limited to first person but seeks to move beyond writing about the self and include the stories of 'silent' others. Through my creative work I am attempting to give voice to a silent 'other', a community under-represented in Australian literature, a working class Melbourne suburb