Egopolis in a State of Crisis: On the Role of Autobiographical Places in Reportage Prose – Charlie LeDuff’s Detroit: An American Autopsy

Edyta Żyrek-Horodyska

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A b s t r a k t

The aim of this article is to reconstruct – using a geopoetic analytical framework – the key functions that autobiographical places may perform in reportage prose. The study examines Detroit: An American Autopsy (2013), by the American reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie LeDuff’s. The analysis shows that the mediated image of LeDuff’s Detroit in this book emerges as an egopolis: a city abandoned and later reclaimed by the journalist, whose “biography” is tightly interwoven with the author’s own life story, shaping his identity in the process.