This collection consists of eight essays that examine the way narratives determine our understanding of old age and condition how the experience is lived. Contributors to this volume depart from two notions: the concept of »narrative identity« developed by Paul Ricoeur, based on the idea that fiction makes life, and his definition of »trace« as the mark of time. By investigating the traces imprinted in a series of literary works they dismantle the narrative of old age as decline and foreclosure to make it unusable and assemble one of transformation and growth.