True lies

Christian Lenemark’s doctoral thesis in literary history focuses on two Swedish front figures in the contemporary mediatization of authors – Carina Rydberg and Stig Larsson. How have these two authors and media strategists approached the post-modern media dramaturgy? How do they manage their personas in the media and in their authorship? And how do the media react to them and what they do?

The extensive theory-building regarding author autobiographies that has emerged over the last ten years has focused on the authors’ behaviours and the actual texts. However, Lenemark’s study shows that media dramaturgy has become very important as well. Lenemark further suggests that the media story is very gendered, granting authority and being sympathetic to male authors while treating female authors with suspicion and denying them authority.

The thesis dives straight into the discussion in recent years about fiction and non-fiction literature and the conditions for authors in our mediatized society.

Title of the thesis: True Lies. Carina Rydberg, Stig Larsson and the Mediatization of the Author.