Encounters with nonfiction and its awkwardness

How does the 'claim to truth' of narrative nonfiction affect the way it is read, in a way that marks it out from fiction? What is the nature of the encounter with the real promised by narrative nonfiction, and how can this be viewed as an intertwining of ethico-political choices and aesthetic strategies? This paper enacts a series of encounters with nonfiction, arguing that the awkwardness of the form when it cares more for 'works of art rather than accumulations of information' (Shields 2010, 64) is what lends it both its urgency and beauty. The first encounter is an autoethnographic account of a cross-cultural scene of storytelling in Addis Ababa. The second surveys theoretical approaches to the definition of nonfiction. The third offers a case study: some recent works by American lyric essayist John D'Agata and the critical reaction to them.