Memoirists who write about divorce, addiction or suicide can start important conversations – and leave families feeling exposed or humiliated. Where do you draw the line?
fosa./Flickr
True stories that enrich our public sphere are often drawn from the intimate and shared lives of their authors. Where is the line between rattling social proprieties and respecting others’ privacy?
Gloria Steinem’s new autobiography reminds us of her work as a tireless grassroots campaigner. Here pictured with Barack Obama receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Reuters/Larry Downing
In her new autobiography, celebrated feminist, activist and author Gloria Steinem seeks to set the record straight on controversial aspects of her legacy.
Smith’s disavowal of plot makes for an utterly tantalising read.
REUTERS/Erik Refner/Scanpix Denmark
Smith’s claim that she is writing about nothing is really her way of renouncing any expectation that her memoir should be anchored by a readily defined plot. This isn’t a story in which a lot of things happen.
Magda Szubanski in one of her most famous roles - Sharon Strzelecki - in Kath and Kim, with actors Gina Riley, Peter Rowsthorn, Glenn Robbins and Jane Turner.
Paul Jeffers/AAP
Magda Szubanski’s engaging debut memoir, Reckoning, is an exercise in precisely that: reconciling the past. It is also a celebration of the life and career of one of our greatest comedians.
Adapting a much-loved text is always a delicate task as the audience can be fiercely protective.
Sydney Film Festival
Holding the Man, the screen adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s much-loved memoir, has seen audiences laughing, then sobbing at its devastating portrayal of AIDS in Australia. It’s an important story to tell.
Sacks’ works have introduced readers to the marvellous complexities of the mind.
Mars Hill Church Seattle/Flickr
The popular neurologist revealed earlier this year that he only has months to live – a statement which casts his recently-released memoir, On the Move: A Life, in a new light.
Campbell Newman is keen to be the subject of a memoir – but the University of Queensland Press doesn’t want to publish it.
AAP Image/John Pryke
The University of Queensland Press caused controversy when it turned down Campbell Newman’s memoir – but why shouldn’t a publisher be entitled to principled refusal?
Otto Dov Kulka in Terezín, 1960s.
Archive of Security Services (ABS), Czech Republic
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, the victims of the Holocaust stand, with a good reason, at the centre of our attention. It is survivors’ memoirs that shaped…
Cullen possessed a natural likeability, even an awkward politeness.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
Adam Cullen, Australian artist and winner of the 2000 Archibald Prize, died just over two years ago at the age of 46. He spent the last three years of his life working with a young writer, Erik Jensen…
True story, seriously, it’s all about me.
Nathan O'Nions
Are we being saturated with “inconsequential memoir”? That question was posed in the latest edition of The Lifted Brow (TLB), a print/online journal of new Australian and international (think US) writing…
Shy people long for social connections but have to fight through a thicket of fears.
Lili Vieira de Carvalho
Shy people have quite a bit to contend with – not least the word itself. It has a number of different meanings, none of which are flattering. To “shy away” from something implies avoidance; to “shy” can…
What links the former Soviet Union to the Russia we know today?
Rob Ketcherside
Spies were a glamour news item in Western (and Soviet) press in the 1960s; it was the age of Kim Philby, British spymaster-cum-Soviet spy, and the endless media hunt for the “fifth man” of the Cambridge…
What memories are you harbouring in your old handset?
Steve Rhodes
During the February half term break, I took my son to the Hayward gallery to see the new Martin Creed show. The highlight of the exhibition is a space in which 20 people are squeezed into a small room…
‘I am not like you suburb-dwellers,’ Carr is telling us. ‘I am extraordinary.’
Alan Porritt/AAP
Bob Carr is at least as vain as your average politician. The unusual thing is that he knows it. And the shocking thing is that he doesn’t seem to mind letting us know that he knows it. Such are the complex…