Pasados singulares

History is increasingly written in the first person. Historians no longer limit themselves to reconstructing and interpreting the past; they now feel the need to include themselves in their stories. A new hybrid genre has been created, exemplified in particular by the works of authors such as Ivan Jablonka or Philippe Artières, who offer the narrative of their investigations and describe their emotions in a very literary style. Conversely, following in the footsteps of Patrick Modiano and W. G. Sebald, some authors such as Javier Cercas, Éric Vuillard or Laurent Binet make the border between novelistic truth and historical truth move with the creation of "fictionless novels". This rise of the self raises epistemological questions and other, deeper questions that concern the world in which we live, its new neoliberal reason and the individualism that characterizes it. In this essay, Enzo Traverso analyzes this subjectivist turn, highlighting its creative potentialities, political ambiguities, and intrinsic limits.