Autobiographies are stories of a person’s life written by themselves, but many are co-written or narrated to a writer. Memoirs are a more subjective style, focusing on memories and emotions. Political figures, celebrities, and sports figures often write ad hoc autobiographies. Fictional autobiographies are written from the point of view of a fictional character.
Simply put, an autobiography is the story of a person’s life written by that individual. That said, many people think their lives should be written, but they don’t have the writing talent to tackle this project on their own. For this reason, many books are co-written with the help of someone other than the subject, or are narrated by the subject to a writer. Co-written or collaborative autobiographies may begin with the phrase “as told to.”
Whether or not the subject is the individual who actually writes the words of his story, most autobiographies are told from a first-person point of view. This differs from a biography, which is clearly recognized as being written by someone other than the subject. Consequently, the autobiographer usually ventures beyond dates and facts, personalizing the story rather than simply recounting the events of his life.
A more subjective book style is known as a memoir. Rather than providing facts about an entire life, a memoir may only tell the story of a finite span of time within the subject’s life and will usually focus more on the individual’s memories, feelings, and experiences. These are not stories driven by events or facts, but rather reflections or expressions of the subject’s inner emotions. Memoirs can also combine historical facts with the autobiographer’s recollections. This particular type of memory is often called an eyewitness account, a term that encompasses slave narratives and Holocaust memoirs, for example.
Notable examples of memoir-style autobiographies include those of St. Augustine and Jean Jacques Rousseau. In some cases, memoirs are written by political figures to offer a personal account of some historical event in which they have been involved. One such example of a political figure using the memoir genre would be Adolph Hilter’s Mein Kampf. Memoirs written by political figures are often intended to gain notoriety or justify actions.
Celebrities and sports figures are also likely to write these books, since their lives are in the public eye and are often of wide public interest. These are often known as ad hoc autobiographies and are usually designed to elicit and/or exploit notoriety. This type of book, although written in the first person, is usually written by a ghostwriter.
Another form is a fictional autobiography, a story written from the point of view of a fictional character. In other words, an author assumes the voice of a fictional character when he writes that character’s biography. The story itself is fictional, but is written as if it happened to the character.
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