How is the practice of writing a form of struggle? How does struggle elucidate the aesthetic and/or political impetus of a written work? Struggle is often ever-present in the experience of writing: from the act of putting pen to paper, to the hardship of the publication process, to experiences of censorship. Many literary works have taken the struggle of writing itself as the topic at hand, offering a dual exploration of how to combat it and how to give it voice.

Ernest Hemingway drew parallels between boxing and literature, seeing in the sport a metaphor for the writer's craft and the challenges inherent in storytelling. According to him, writing is akin to confrontation, where the writer must engage head-on with hardships of life alongside the struggle to bring them to life through the written word.

Similarly, Michel Leiris compared literature to bullfighting, insofar as writing involves significant risk. In the arena, the risk is physical harm; in writing, the risk is emotional exposure and the possibility of failure. However, both also offer great rewards—victory in the stadium, or the creation of a work that resonates with the self and others.

More recently, Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle brings to light the struggle to write in contrast with the banality of one’s daily struggles, from the repetition of domestic chores to maintaining cultivating ties with the social world. The act of writing becomes, for Knausgård, a battleground for confronting one’s daily struggles.

This panel welcomes contributions that examine different explorations of literature as struggle, as a craft of confrontation. We welcome papers that explore aspects of adversity, but also of vulnerability and inner struggle in novels and essays through a diverse range of thematic, critical, and aesthetic frameworks. Cross-geographic and cross-cultural proposals are encouraged. Proposals may address, but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:

• Aesthetic formulations and representations of struggle in literary writing 


• The autofictional turn and its exploration of writing as struggle


• Writing as a struggle of meaning-making


• Political ramifications of “writing as the struggle”


• Explorations of trauma and the struggle of writing in autobiographical novels