A paradoxical effect of the postmodern deconstruction of the subject has been a massive interest in biography, genre, fiction, media, literary theory and scholarship. This project aims to investigate the modern development and innovations of biographism by focusing on the space between biographical facts and fictions and their interaction in preserving and renewing both fictional and biographical discourse. The modern novel and biography are closely connected and the biographical perspective has created a number of different types of texts, in both prose and poetry, during modernity. In postmodern literature the influence, however, seems to operate in the opposite direction; fictional discourse came to renew biographical discourse in a fundamental way at the end of the 20th century. This project aims to investigate the complex process when life becomes fiction and vice versa, focusing on four strategically chosen historical periods: the modern breakthrough (Victoria Benedictsson), between the wars (Evert Taube), the 60s and 70s (Sonja Åkesson) and the late 20th century (Carina Rydberg, Stig Larsson et al.). The purpose of this project is to create a deeper understanding of biographical narratives and their importance in the human creation of meaning in both life and literature during modernity. Important parts of the investigation are media and gender aspects.