The aim of this paper is to discuss two generic concepts based on the dialectics of approximation and distancing between the narrative subject and the empirical author. The first, autofiction, is a category already strongly present when it comes to theoretical reflection on the means of literary representation of the past, whereas the second, autonarrative fiction, is presented as a “project-term” which allows to acknowledge structural similarities between works written before the emergence of the autofictional paradigm. The point of arrival of this classificatory route is the novel Grande sertão: veredas by João Guimarães Rosa, which presents an implosive convergence of the two models.