The article suggests to consider non-fictional writing like a global “symbolic form” (Cassirer) of XXth century and tries to analyse its caracteristics starting from some Italian examples: La guerra in casa (1998) and Piove all’insù (2006) by Luca Rastello, a journalist and writer engaged in historical research and L’invisibile ovunque (2015), a book by the group Wu Ming: which is the notion of time in these works? Which is the relationship between non-fiction and truth? Which the relationship to historiography ? which the links with engagement? Finally: is non-fiction a form of fiction?