This study presents a comparative analysis of the modes of authorial presence in T. Capote’s novel, S. Alexievich’s book of testimony, and M. Murodov’s autobiographical novella. Documentary writing is approached not as the absence of authorial mediation, but as a specific mode of organizing factual material, the discourse of others, or autobiographical memory. The article proposes a model of the transformed authorial instance built around four parameters: the visibility of authorial discourse, the object of its organization, the dominant textual operation, and the associated ethical risk. The comparative analysis identifies three variants of a common architectonic structure: the author-reconstructor organizes the event, the author-editor assembles testimonial voices, and the author-mediator shapes fragments of memory. The concept of compensatory authorship is introduced to demonstrate that the reduction of direct authorial commentary does not eliminate the authorial instance; rather, it relocates its activity to the levels of selection, focalization, montage, and chronotopic organization. The analysis of textual microfragments demonstrates that the author’s structural freedom becomes particularly evident precisely where the authorial voice is least explicit.

authorial instance, author-architect, compensatory authorship, documentary-fiction narrative, focalization, montage, testimony, memory.

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