The question "who am I?" evokes both the problem of the self (self-conscious) and the autobiography (self writing). The notion of a self-conscious I and the autobiographical genre are interconnected social constructions, marked by historical and cultural changes of the Western modernity and object of philosophical, scientific and literary reflection. This paper discusses problems in both Dostoevsky's (1864/2009) Notes from the underground, and Italo Svevo's (1923/2003) Confessions of Zeno. In These works we can observe modern dilemmas regarding the understanding of the self and the self writing by their authors' handling of the content and texts form. Two themes, the truth of self as disease and the impossibility of autobiography were examined comparatively with the support of trans-disciplinary theoretical frames which contribute to the revision of the concept of self and the autobiographical genre. In both novels, the same analysis shows the challenge of Cartesian, individualistic and rationalist underpinnings of the self and the autobiography made by the critical debate of the modern subject, by figuring these realities as the social, relational and dialogical artifacts rather than individual, finished, private, static or coherent entities realities. Both underline the I precarious condition that emerges only in the relationship with and in reaction to others. Each novel, in its own way, disrupt the belief in the I founding conceptions and the autobiography, while raising questions that are now special object of theorization of a narrative-dialogical Psychology.
Self; autobiography; dialogism