Abstract
Why would anyone want to write about dying of cancer and why would anyone want to read about it in a newspaper? Until recently, accounts of dying were by and large confined to literature while first-person accounts of those last months and days were shared with intimates. Now, people regularly chart their demise in newspapers or personal blogs. The article looks at how these narratives of illness, especially cancer, belong to the wider phenomenon of confessional journalism, which can be understood as a subset of literary journalism. These accounts should be seen as constructed narratives with stylistic conventions shaping what is said and what is not said, sharing many of the formal generic aspects of confessional journalism.
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