Despite the lack of precise statistical data, one of the most consistent features of contemporary narrative is the confident return of the first-person narrator. In recent novels, the first-person narrator reenters the scene without necessarily discussing its own condition of possibility, either in melancholic and solemn tones— such as, for example, in Resistance, by Julián Fuks— or in ironic and cynical tones— such as in Brochadas (Impotence), by Jacques Fux. The self has gained a new authority and resourcefulness through the testimony of its particular experience, or through the process that the writing reflects in its subjective formation. Thus, the position of the self reconciles an individual and his or her story by counting on a subjectivity in formation, and has thus gained a certain legitimacy. It is true that the central presence of the self is shared by a variety of genres that are not necessarily fictional, such as personal diaries, testimonies, self-help books, autobiographies, essays, memoirs, travel writing and everyday chronicles, among others, and that one of the explanations for this phenomenon probably resides in the approximation between the contemporary novel and these formats, which provokes a typical negotiation between reality and fiction. In the novel The Eternal Son, by Cristóvão Tezza, there is a good example in which fiction skillfully seams elements of memory discourses, self-help and confessional statements. The novel has come to earn great attention from the media, in addition to being a critical and commercial success as a result of this hybridity with very real foundations.

The concept of autofiction was coined from the debates on the diversity of the autobiographical genre in order to describe autobiographical narratives with great fictional freedom or fiction supported by biographical and referential elements from the life of the author. The introduction of biographical elements in these accounts, from real proper names to saucy or vengeful details of love affairs, without a doubt appeals to a public that wants to enjoy in literature not only the craftsmanship of language, but in particular the narcissistic celebrity of the writer, which has become an essential dimension of the publishing industry today. Thus, the author has resuscitated in literature and has installed himself or herself once again at the center of the narrative, with a precise and at times onomastic identification among author, narrator and character.