Autofiction and testimony in Vigdis Hjorth's Will and Testament

Vigdis Hjorth's Will and Testament can be read as autofiction in the sense that it is relevantly based on the author's experience, despite the fictional elaborations surrounding the narrator's identity, and because it involves a critique of what it means for the trauma victim to communicate their version of traumatic experience within a contested space. Since it recounts the narrator's experience of recovering from a childhood abuse, it can also be read as testimony. Hjorth actively questions the value of an individual's narrative truth and how it ought to be received by others in circumstances where the victim cannot recall the events with specificity, and in which the perpetrator of the abuse denies it occurred. Moreover, it situates such an account within the context of collective truths"”a family's narrative of itself, and public and historical narratives about which version of events is to be believed and prevail.