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Postmodernist metafictional writing, by reflecting on itself, that is, by showing how it is structured, how it has come into being, openly displays its artificial character [...] In doing so, these works expressly deny that they are trying to project a reality by offering a credible story. These …

The historical period we are living through has been singularly uncertain, insecure, self-questioning and culturally pluralistic. Contemporary fiction clearly reflects this dissatisfaction with, and breakdown of, traditional values. Previously, as in the case of nineteenth-century realism, the fo…

To label this literary trend 'metafiction' is a pars pro toto, symbolic of its larger postmodernist project of unveiling artificiality and problematizing reality.

Patricia Waugh defines it as follows: 'Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.'

'Oh God comma I abhor self-consciousness.' This sentence from John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse is emblematic of the reflexive irony of Barth's fiction: it professes an aversion to self-reflectivity, while actually wallowing in it. [...]