Vem är »Maja Lundgren« i Maja Lundgrens Myggor och tigrar? Fakta och fiktion som ontologi, framställningssätt eller retorisk kommunikationsakt

Abstract

Maja Lundgren’s outspoken description in Myggor och tigrar (2007) of the male dominated cultural life of Sweden raised an animated debate in media. Well known authors and journalists felt themselves scandalized and accused Lundgren of being paranoid. Others claimed that the narrator and character »Maja Lundgren« was not to be confused with Maja Lundgren the author, because the book was fictional and not factual. In this article I discuss Myggor och tigrar out from different fiction theories and conclude that it seems most rewarding to approach the problem of fictionality as a question of rhetorical communication rather than ontology or stylistic devices. I also maintain that Lundgren’s book would implode if read as fiction, since the rhetorical strategy implies the identity of the author and the character.