Writer’s Block, Genre’s Block: An Affective Analysis of Dung Kai-cheung’s The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera

The emergence of autofiction in the 2010s has posed an unprecedented challenge for literary scholars. Those perceiving it as a parodic revitalization of the “exhausted possibilities” of fiction, as Russian formalists might suggest, are confronted with its subversive deconstruction of fiction as a genre. Similarly, proponents who advocate for its revolutionary restructuring of the generic hierarchy struggle to reconcile with its heavy reliance on the generic sources of autobiography and fiction. Despite the temptation of potential generic categorization, the current impasse suggests that viewing autofiction as solely a genre issue is problematic. Furthermore, attempts to establish autofiction as a distinct literary school or trend have likewise failed to yield satisfactory outcomes. Framing autofiction as a generic response to the detachment of postmodernism, such attempts engendered an undue overemphasis on Anglophone writers, who are regarded as epicenters of post- postmodern literary scene, while neglecting autofictional works from the Global South. Employing psychologist-philosopher Silvan Tomkins’ affect and script theories, the paper examines Hong Kong writer Dung Kai-cheung’s autofiction: The History of the Adventures of Vivi and Vera, and argues that writer’s oscillation between different generic conventions is not just a matter of formal choices, but one that reflects an affective struggle with ways of conceptualizing reality that are stored within the genre memory. Thus, autofiction offers an alternative to the traditional generic division, where generic hierarchy is replaced by a fluid exchange of affects, and genre as an affect object becomes the medium for affective practices rather than a fixed set awaiting formal adaptation or resistance.