Life writing is the recording of selves, memories, and experiences, whether one's own or another's. This applies to many genres and practices, under which can be found autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, autoethnography, personal essays and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and email.
Life writing can also be linked with genealogical study: when recording one's life it is common to become curious about the lives of others that have affected one over time and, if they have not recorded their own life, to start doing it for them.
The continued popularity of the biographic form can be seen with the recent publication of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, an updated version of a 19th-century publication, containing 50,113 biographic articles about 54,922 people who have significantly affected and shaped Britain.
Read more about Life Writing: Why Life Writing?, Academic Study, Famous Examples of Life Writing
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or writing:
“Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)