Abstract: Biofiction is fiction that names its protagonist after a real person. In the 1930s it became a dominant literary form among prominent German writers. For Thomas Mann, this genre could be used to provide readers with an existential map for moral living, but Thomas's son, Klaus, who was openly gay, believed that his father's commitment to morality led to mental illness. Klaus Mann authored biofictions that metaphorized the lives of real people to represent a possibility of a post-moral way of living that promoted better psychological well-being. In his novella, Barred Window , Klaus implicitly exposes his father's way of thinking as not just obsolete but also as dangerous.
Michael Lackey (Mon,) studied this question.