Cirrus@Austlit

'While writing my PhD thesis about the concept of closure in literature, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a usually curable type of cancer that, in my case, has nonetheless developed into a dire prognosis. In this paper I weave literary theory with personal memoir as I attempt to make sense of my life and its possible ending. Fiction helps to make sense of the world by reflecting it and imbuing the reflection with structure and meaning, However, this reflection is illusory, and we face a world far less certain in which we must make meaning for ourselves.' (Publication abstract)