Self-reflective devices in prima di Sparire: metafiction, autofiction and autobiography in the Pivotal book of Covacich's Ciclo delle stelle

The aim of this paper is to describe Mauro Covacich’s use of self-reflective devices, such as metafiction, autofiction, and autobiography in Prima di sparire, where the author focuses his analysis on the crisis of identity of the contemporary subject, and represents his own crisis on the one hand as a writer and on the other hand as an ordinary person. In this essay, a short introduction to Covacich’s novelist production will contextualize the study of his narrative self-reflectiveness, which will be followed by the discussion of one passage of Prima di sparire, where both the fictional and the self-reflective paths of the authorial quest emerge. The final part of the essay will focus Covacich’s theoretical considerations on autofiction in contemporary literature