Traditional autobiography tends to originate in some form of crisis and
to develop some form of resolution. In contrast, much contemporary
autobiography deals with unresolved crises and cannot even assume
authoritative, first-person narration. Susanna Egan finds such
autobiographies dialogic in form, involving the reader in generic
experimentation in their pursuit of shifting, uncertain meanings. After
tracing the literary experimentation of contemporary genres to the
inventiveness of modernism, she explores the generic contributions of
drama, film, quilting, comics, and blended literary forms to changing
genres of autobiography. Egan identifies lived crises--such as diaspora,
genocide, and terminal illness--as the forces behind generic
experimentation, suggesting dynamic intersections between trauma and
cultural expression.
Mirror Talk examines work by a wide range of autobiographers,
including Primo Levi, Maxine Hong Kingston, Audre Lorde, Michael
Ondaatje, Tom Joslin, Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee, Sandra Butler
and Barbara Rosenblum, Breyten Breytenbach, Linda Griffiths and Maria
Campbell, Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Mary Meigs, Dennis
Potter, and Trinh T. Minh-ha.