Authors

Discussion

Sveta Lukyanova’s Ya nichego plokhogo ne delayu (I Am Not Doing Anything Wrong, 2023) is at once an autofictional novel about a period of bisexual identification and ethical non-monogamy, and an investigation into the boundaries of literary form, self, and sexuality. This paper explores the ways in which Lukyanova’s narration disrupts chronology, genre, and the boundaries between self and other as well as her present and past selves. I argue that the novel challenges the ways in which autobiographical writing demands a coherent version of the self be constructed from fragments of experience and sometimes hazy memories. Through the incorporation of a play within a novel, sections told from the perspective of her parents or a childhood friend, and the use of the second person and song lyrics, the autofictional form shifts in response to the author-protagonist’s sense of self deteriorating or consolidating. More than that, while Lukyanova validates her lesbian ‘now-identity’ in the resolution of the text, she simultaneously presents her then-bisexuality as a meaningful and informative aspect of her self-construction. I argue that her text therefore works against both the binary of monosexualities and plurisexualities and against the idea of an authentic, immutable self.