engleski

Simms Taback Meets Joseph Kohn: Metafictive Dialogues within a Picturebook

Simms Taback’s picturebook Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (1999) is analysed in terms of its realistic and fictional elements and their sophisticated relationship. The visual and verbal strata of the picturebook establish a dialogue which makes it multidimensional and metafictive. A range of metafictive devices is identified and explained at the levels of the book paratexts, the narrative itself, and its specific cultural background. The picturebook incorporates various cultural, literary, and factual details, mostly as intraiconic texts. Therefore, intertextuality is one of the most prominent features of the picturebook. A seemingly simple story adopted from a Yiddish folk song turns into a thoroughly metafictive piece, which questions the reality of fiction and the fictionality of reality. As such, it enables Simms the author and Joseph the character to meet and initiate a dialogue on crucial literary and cultural issues, inviting the reader to participate.

Simms Taback; metafiction; intercultural dialogue; intertextuality; picturebook; intraiconic text

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