Beyond Autoethnography: Fictocriticism as a Feminist Writing Strategy

Abstract

Recent criticism interrogates a trend where Asian diasporic writers have been read as providing “authentic” insights on cultural difference. This essay interprets Yasmin Ladha's works as examples of South Asian writing that unsettle reductive notions of diasporic identity. Some of Ladha's work is in the experimental manner associated with feminist, interventionist writing called fictocriticism, which breaks down the boundaries between fiction and criticism, reader and writer, through techniques such as fragmentation and juxtaposition. I suggest that fictocriticism emphasizes a multiplicity of subjective experiences, making it a particularly cogent strategy for eluding—and calling attention to—reductive autoethnographic interpretations of Ladha's work.