Lucia Boldrini is the professor of Goldsmiths, University of London, member of the Academia Europaea and currently serves as the Vice-President of the International Comparative Literature Association. On May 25, 2022, Professor Boldrini was invited to deliver an online lecture named “Biographical Fictions and\as World Literature” to the faculty and students of the School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Professor Biwu Shang hosted the lecture.

First, Professor Boldrini introduced the concept of biofiction. That is, according to David Lodge, “using real characters and their histories as subjects for imaginative exploration and using fictional techniques to reproduce subjective rather than objective, evidence-based biographical discourse.” Professor Boldrini suggested that the value of biofiction has been rediscovered in recent years and recognized as a unique literary genre with great academic significance. Then, Professor Boldrini introduced the identification of “heterobiography”, denoting a biography that is written by another person. After clarifying the conceptions, Professor Boldrini turned to the texts. Expounding on Steven Price’s Lampedusa, John Banville’s Doctor Copernicus, and Vladimir Nabokov’s The Gift, she explored how literary texts critically engage with world literature by reconstructing the lives of historical figures. How do they negotiate the continuities and fractures – psychological and emotional as much as historical and ideological – between person, home and world? How do they enrich readers’ knowledge about the world and literature by representing real historical lives? And how do biofictions inform our thinking about literature’s responsibility in the world and to the world that it receives, describes, shapes, creates, passes on as legacy.
In the Q&A session, teachers and students of the School of Foreign Languages engaged in a lively discussion with Professor Boldrini on topics such as author’s intention and the authenticity of biofiction, the boundary of literary imagination, and the cultural context of biofiction. Professor Biwu Shang summarized the lecture and expressed his sincere thanks to Professor Boldrini. The lecture was successfully concluded.