Priscilla Gac-Artigas, Ph.D., professor emerita in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, recently published an article, “Colectficción: trascendiendo las fronteras del yo en la creación poética” (Collectfiction: Transcending the Frontiers of the Self in Poetry” in HYBRIDO (Year XXVI, Issue 19, Summer 2024, 41-47), a peer-reviewed, indexed cultural magazine dedicated to promoting art, culture, and literary criticism.
“Collectfiction,”[1] a literary term developed by Gac-Artigas, encourages readers to “transcend the self” while engaging with literature, thus merging the individual and the collective into a shared story.
“When we first coined the term in 2017, we sought to capture a creative process deeply rooted in personal experience, yet expansive enough to invite every reader into the narrative,” said Gac-Artigas.
As such, through the fictionalized transformation of personal experience, the reader is encouraged to recognize themselves and, together with the author, reconfigure the proposed story as a collectfiction.
“What makes collectfiction truly revolutionary is its deliberate transgression of the autofictional reading pact,” Gac-Artigas continues. “By shifting the narrative focus from the individual to a shared human experience, it compels readers not only to engage in an active and creative reading of the text but also to transcend the self-contained personal story to illuminate a collective one.”
The literary and aesthetic resources employed in this process include intertextuality, a blend of genres, styles, and linguistic registers, humor, ludism (the incorporation of playful, game-like elements), and the metaphor of the Theatrum mundi, along with recognizable historical and cultural references to a specific generation or era.
Gac-Artigas argues that this collective approach is more than a narrative style—it’s a form of “artivism,” demonstrated in the works of authors like Venezuelan playwright Pablo García Gámez, whose plays respond to social crises with powerful, collective voices. Transcending authorial individualism through an active dialogue with the reader to reconfigure the story within the social fabric is what transforms these works into the collectfiction or sociofiction of an era, whether of a specific community—such as the LGBTIQ+ population, as seen in García Gámez’s plays “Olvidadas” (2019) and “Las mártiras” (2021)[2]—or of an entire generational collective, as is explored in this essay on collectfiction in poetry.
Gac-Artigas’ previous research surrounding collectfiction explored its use in drama, novels, and the arts; conversely, other researchers have explored its application in film and theater[3]. For the first time, this article ventures into collectfiction in poetry, discovering how some view the genre as “personal and intimate,” while others call for readers to “weave their voices into a collective chorus.”
The article is divided into two sections. The first summarizes the theory of collectfiction, providing a background to understand the work. The second applies this theory to the poetry of the authors studied: Gioconda Belli (Nicaragua), María Ángeles Pérez López (Spain), Amanda Gorman (United States), Martín Espada (United States, of Puerto Rican origin), and Gustavo Gac-Artigas (Chile).
“These poets invite us to move beyond the self and engage in a shared narrative, making their works emblematic of a new era of poetry that speaks not just for one, but for all,” concluded Gac-Artigas.
Gac-Artigas is a Fulbright Scholar, a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE for its acronym in Spanish), and a correspondent member of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).
[1] . Other articles on collectfiction: “De la autoficción a la ficción colectiva: Y todos éramos actores: un siglo de luz y sombra de Gustavo Gac-Artigas”, en Impossibilia. Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios, n.º 14, noviembre, pp. 51-72; “Colectficción”: una forma transgresora de enfocar la creación literaria”. BANLE. Vol. XIII – XV Nos. 24-26 Años 2021-2023, pp 319-334; “Vivir para contarla: de la autoficción a la colectficción en la literatura y las artes”. En Demeyer, L., Magras, R., Pouzet I., Santini B., dir. Instabilités et mutations : jeux du “Je” dans la littérature latino-américaine des xxe et xxie siècles, Shäker Verlag, pp 135-146.
[2] . “Mechanisms of collectfiction in two works by Pablo García Gámez and the metaphor of inclusive language beyond the linguistic aspect”, forthcoming in October 2024 in Proceedings of the Third Congress of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.
[3]. Gac-Artigas, P. Ed. (2022). “Colectficción: sobrepasando los límites de la autoficción” / “Collectfiction: Transcending the Limits of Autofiction”, Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.