Autofiction is defined by identity of author and protagonist plus present-tense uneventfulness

Evidence

Auto is a Greek reflexive pronoun: self, same, of itself, independent, natural, not made. In English compounds, it usually means self-acting and spontaneous, as in “automatic.” The recently surging autofictions acquit as fictions that are not fictions, not made but just extant, exalting a presence preceding representation. As a rule, autofictions follow the fight plan Knausgaard outlines for eschewing the devices of fictification (character, plot, and narrative). Rather than building character, they advance a protagonist who is the same as the author in name and circumstance and real friends and real family and, above all, real voice. Rather than narrativity and plot, they purvey first-person present-tense uneventful short-spans, just elliptical ruminations in real time. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 115

Categorization

• DEFINE: Nominates the defining features of autofiction that the reader wants to be able to name on sight.