Autobiography and life writing

To write one's own life is also to choose a language and a reader. Babur tells in Turki of his years from Ferghana to India, Casanova writes his memoirs as a Venetian in French, Chateaubriand addresses those who will read him when he is gone. The childhood narrative holds a large place: a boy deprived of sight in an Egyptian village in Taha Hussein, a Black childhood in the segregated South in Richard Wright, the lower depths of Tangier in Mohamed Choukri, whose book first appeared in English. Nathalie Sarraute, who had said she was incapable of writing her autobiography, published Childhood at eighty-three.

works 13

• NarrativeThe BaburnamaBoburnomaZahiriddin Muhammad Babur · 1530Ferghana, Kabul and India between 1494 and 1529, travelled by a prince who twice loses everything he has and ends up an emperor.Literature
• NarrativeThe Life and Adventures of Dimitrije ObradovićЖивот и прикљученијаDositej Obradović · 1783The autobiography of a defrocked monk turned wandering schoolmaster, written to show his own people that their future lies in schools.Literature
• NarrativeHistory of My LifeHistoire de ma vieGiacomo Casanova · 1822Memoirs of a Venetian adventurer of the eighteenth century, written in French at the end of his life.Literature
• NarrativeMemoirs from Beyond the GraveMémoires d'Outre-TombeFrançois-René de Chateaubriand · 1850A man recounts his life and his century, addressing those who will read him when he is no more.LiteraturePublic domain
• NarrativeMy ChildhoodДетствоMaxim Gorky · 1914First part of the author's autobiographical trilogy, serialised in 1913-1914: a childhood in the house of a dyer grandfather.LiteraturePublic domain
• NarrativeThe Life and Adventures of a SomaliIbrahim Ismaa'il · 1928A Somali sailor settled in England since the end of the Great War tells his life to an anthropologist friend, in a libertarian colony in the Cotswolds.Literature
• NarrativeThe DaysالأيامTaha Hussein · 1929The childhood of a boy deprived of sight in an Egyptian village, then his student years, told by the adult he has become.Literature
• NarrativeA Journey Round My SkullUtazás a koponyám körülFrigyes Karinthy · 1937A Hungarian writer starts hearing noises coming from nowhere, learns what he has in his head, and goes off to be operated on in Sweden.Literature
• NarrativeBlack BoyRichard Wright · 1945An account of a Black childhood in the segregated South, by a man who went hungry there. It was first read as an indictment of the South, then as the formation of a writer.Literature
• NovelThe Dark ChildL'Enfant noirCamara Laye · 1953A young Guinean, a worker by day and a student in the evening in Paris, writes the story of his childhood.Literature
• NarrativeFor Bread Aloneالخبز الحافيMohamed Choukri · 1973The childhood of a boy from the Rif, in the slums of Tangier, told without gloss; first published in English, in 1973.Literature
• NarrativeMemoirsConfieso que he vividoPablo Neruda · 1974The life of a poet and diplomat told through anecdotes, from childhood in the south to the consulates of Asia.Literature
• NarrativeChildhoodEnfanceNathalie Sarraute · 1983An old woman rediscovers her childhood in dialogue with an inner voice that casts doubt on every memory.Literature