Memoir

Memoirs and creative non-fiction.

Memoir is a genre.

You can view all genres, or you can search by language/region, editor/translator, era/movement, book authors, or year of edition.

Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen
Contemporary American Literature Memoir Non-Fiction

Girl, Interrupted features one of my favourite structures — it is a memoir constructed via vignettes. There are lots of margins here.

To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

Hervé Guibert
Contemporary French Literature Memoir

While it might sound like a difficult read, it isn’t. Guibert’s voice remains strong even as his body is starting to weaken and more fear dominates his days.

Before Night Falls

Reinaldo Arenas
Contemporary Cuban Literature Memoir

Penguin Vitae editions are easy to love and to gush over. The colours! The foil text! The hardcover, in a comfortable size!

Close to the Knives

David Wojnarowicz
Contemporary American Literature Memoir

Wojnarowicz is asking us to listen to him crying from his deathbed and the reader cannot turn away.

Written on Water

Eileen Chang
Wartime American-Chinese Essay Memoir Non-Fiction

These essays are talks over coffee and catching up after a long week. They are close friends talking about the issues that matter to them and the parts of the past still stuck to the hem of their clothes.

I Am Not Ashamed

Barbara Payton
Contemporary American Memoir

If you don’t know who Barbara Payton was, you are forgiven. I was actually introduced to her and her book through Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley on TCM, and a screening of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a 1950 James Cagney film.

Adventures in the Screen Trade

William Goldman
Contemporary American Memoir Non-Fiction

I came to William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade via last week’s book, Julie Salamon’s The Devil’s Candy. It was actually mentioned in the puffery on the back of that essential book as being another essential book.

The Devil’s Candy

Julie Salamon
Contemporary American Memoir Non-Fiction

Salamon is exhaustive in her recounting of the movie-making process, from casting all the way to the final agonizing returns. I learned a lot about what it takes to produce a film, and the processes of people far removed from the actors and the cameras.

The Lover

Marguerite Duras
Contemporary French Literature Memoir

While the book is called The Lover, I would argue that it’s not much about the lover at all.

Brother, I’m Dying

Edwidge Danticat
21st Century American-Haitian Memoir Non-Fiction

It’s really a story of two fathers, since it was her uncle that became her father when Danticat was left behind by her parents as they established themselves in America.