‘Narrative about the author’ and the problem of writers’ self-identification in modern literary process

The research is devoted to the analysis of the ‘narrative about the author’ in interviews with contemporary writers. Modern literary process is characterized by reconfiguration and reevaluation of the writerreader- text system. The author’s persona, their direct speech intended for different types of readership are coming to the fore. In interviews, a special ‘narrative about the author’ (self-identification as a writer) is formed. The author of the article comes to a conclusion that writers are faced with the necessity of public self-reflection, self-commenting, i. e. creation of a metatext - a second-order text about one's own creative work; they become self-interpreters, gaining the ability to influence the reader's perception vectors, while shifting from the sphere of the sacred to the sphere of consumption. Text as a communication act ceases to be alienated from the author (the author-text-reader relationship becomes horizontal), the reader perceives the work through the model of personality that the writer has presented to the public. It is necessary to study the author's narrative of self-representation as a system of voluntary or repressive conventions adopted by the author (narrative framework), restrictions imposed by the author on themselves, and ways of their representation, taking into account the problem of verification of this self-representation. The way the ‘narrative about the author’ is arranged is determined by many factors; the description of those can serve as an illustration of the dynamics of modern writers’ views on the essence of literary creativity and the mission of the writer in the time of literary centrality coming to collapse. The study of the ‘narrative about the author’ is relevant in the context of understanding the complexity of determining the main artistic trends of the present time. The research is based on the material of interviews with the writer E. Vodolazkin devoted to his novel Lavr.