The Literary Interview. Toward a Poetics of a Hybrid Genre

This article brings together the scattered research from French, English and German research traditions on the literary interview, i.e., the in-depth personal interview given by (or in some cases also conducted by) a literary author. The literary interview can be regarded as a hybrid genre for several reasons. Firstly, it belongs both to the media and to the literary domain. Secondly, its authorship is divided between interviewee and interviewer and is also affected by editing and publishing. Thirdly, it bears characteristics of both an oral interaction and of a written or edited communication. As a result, the literary interview as a study object raises important questions about notions like genre, authorship and authorial positioning (posture), and discourse. A literary perspective on the interview also throws a new light on some of the basic characteristics associated with the personal interview in general: the "pact" or assumption of authenticity, the tension between format on the one hand and spontaneity on the other hand, and the formal strategies used to (re)create the encounter in the interview text. Both as a historical object and as a contemporary, culturally specific practice, the literary interview is an interesting case to study the dynamic interaction between the media and literature in contemporary cultures.