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:
“There are only two sorts of people in life you can trust—good Christians and good Communists.”
—Joe Slovo (b. 1926)
“I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)