Her (Per)version: The Confessions of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch

This article on Wanda von Sacher-Masoch's 1906 autobiography Meine Lebensbeichte is informed by turn-of-the-century studies in its focus on constructions of sexuality and gender, as well as by feminist studies of autobiography and issues of female self-representation. With her autobiography, Wanda von Sacher-Masoch created a countertext to her husband Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's masochistic texts, in particular his "Venus in Furs," by introducing female subject positions outside the heterosexual paradigm of the male master text. The misogynist reception of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch's assertion of female authorship and self-representation illustrates the contested position of the female autobiographer around 1900. (KG)