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In 2009, Rachael Cerrotti, a college student pursuing a career in photojournalism, asked her grandmother, Hana, if she could record her story. Rachael knew that her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and the only one in her family alive at the end of the war. Rachael also knew that she survived because of the kindness of strangers. It wasn't a secret. Hana spoke about her history publicly and regularly. But, Rachael wanted to document it as only a granddaughter could. So, that's what they did: Hana talked and Rachael wrote.Upon Hana's passing in 2010, Rachael discovered an incredible archive of her life. There were preserved albums and hundreds of photographs dating back to the 1920s. There were letters waiting to be translated, journals, diaries, deportation and immigration papers as well as creative writings from various stages of Hana's life.Rachael digitized and organized it all, plucking it from the past and placing it into her present. Then, she began retracing her grandmother's story, following her through Central Europe, Scandinavia, and across the United States. She tracked down the descendants of those who helped save her grandmother's life during the war. Rachael went in pursuit of her grandmother's memory to explore how the retelling of family stories becomes the history itself.We Share the Same Sky weaves together the stories of these two young women—Hana as a refugee who remains one step ahead of the Nazis at every turn, and Rachael, whose insatiable curiosity to touch the past guides her into the lives of countless strangers, bringing her love and tragic loss. Throughout the course of her twenties, Hana's history becomes a guidebook for Rachael in how to live a life empowered by grief.

This biography of “a vital player in Revolutionary circles... offers us an important role model... a fearless woman almost lost to the fog of history” (Charlotte Gordon, Ph.D., author of Romantic Outlaws, winner of the National Book Critics Circle award for biography). This first-ever biography of Harriet de Boinville explores her close relationships with Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and other leading writers of the Romantic era, but also tells the gripping story of Harriet's early years as the wife of an aristocratic military officer during the French-English Wars, when she experienced a naval attack in the Caribbean, a shipwreck off the coast of France, and detention as a suspected spy in Dunkirk. Combining literary history and gender study with the engaging story of a courageous and caring woman, this ground-breaking book has generated extraordinary praise from renowned authors and experts. “... fascinating history, but it's also an adventure tale and a romance...” —Cory Flintoff, NPR former foreign correspondent. “... Harriet de Boinville most engages with her vibrant and resilient self. Her generous personality shines through the letters quoted in this fascinating biography...” —Janet Todd, Ph.D., author of Death and the Maidens, and former president of Cambridge University's Cavendish College. “Fascinating... Lives like Harriet de Boinville's fill out the story of those formative times as nothing else can...” —Fiona Sampson, Ph.D., author of Two-Way Mirror, a Washington Post Book of the Year. “... meticulously researched and fluidly written... At the Center of the Circle tells the compelling story of a remarkably influential woman...” —Kristin Samuelian, Ph.D., Associate Professor at George Mason University and author of Royal Romances.

After the Second World War, two contrasting political movements became increasingly active in Italy - the communist and feminist movements. In this book, Walter Baroni uses autobiographical life-writing from both movements key protagonists to shed new light on the history of these movements and more broadly the similarities and differences between political activists in post-war Italy.

For the first time ever, a survivor tells the shocking inside story of her time trapped in Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking ring.Sarah Ransome moved to New York at the age of 22 with hopes for a better life, an education, and a career in fashion. Her dreams were destroyed almost overnight when she met Jeffrey Epstein and was invited to an island paradise disguising her personal hell.“By sharing my testimony…I hope to see both minds and laws changed. More than anything, I want to encourage a culture in which women, even if they haven't led the perfect lives, even if they're not proud of every one of their choices, still feel the right to stand in their truth.”This story is her day in court.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES AND FINANCIAL TIMESFifty years after Evelyn Waugh's death, here is a completely fresh view of one of the most gifted -- and fascinating -- writers of our time, the enigmatic author of Brideshead Revisited. Graham Greene hailed Waugh as ‘the greatest novelist of my generation', and in recent years his reputation has only grown. Now Philip Eade has delivered an authoritative and hugely entertaining biography that is full of new material, much of it sensational.Eade builds upon the existing Waugh lore with access to a remarkable array of unpublished sources provided by Waugh's grandson, including passionate love letters to Baby Jungman – the Holy Grail of Waugh research - a revealing memoir by Waugh's first wife Evelyn Gardner (“Shevelyn”), and an equally significant autobiography by Waugh's commanding officer in World War II. Eade's gripping narrative illuminates Waugh's strained relationship with his sentimental father and blatantly favoured elder brother; his love affairs with male classmates at Oxford and female bright young things thereafter; his disastrous first marriage and subsequent conversion to Roman Catholicism; his insane wartime bravery; his drug-induced madness; his singular approach to marriage and fatherhood; his complex relationship with the aristocracy; the astonishing power of his wit; and the love, fear, and loathing that he variously inspired in others.One of Eade's aims is ‘to re-examine some of the distortions and misconceptions that have come to surround this famously complex and much mythologized character'.‘This might look like code for a plan to whitewash the overly blackwashed Waugh,'comments veteran Waugh scholar Professor Donat Gallagher; ‘but readers fixated on atrocities will not be disappointed... I have been researching and writing about Waugh since 1963 and Eade time and again surprised and delighted me.'Waugh was famously difficult and Eade brilliantly captures the myriad facets of his character even as he casts new light on the novels that have dazzled generations of readers.

Biographische Praktiken konstruieren Subjekt und Identität, Wissens- und Handlungspotenziale - auf geschlechtsspezifische Art. Dieser Band versammelt Studien zur Selbstinszenierung, Rezeption, Identitätskonstruktion in Theorie, Geschichte und Literatur vom 16. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert in Auseinandersetzung mit Denkansätzen der Geschlechterforschung. Die Beiträge analysieren Praktiken des Erschließens, Sichtbarmachens (making visible) und des Sichtbarhaltens (keeping visible) von Geschlechterwissen in auto_biographischen Zusammenhängen.

Biographer Steven J. Holmes once wrote that John Muir was'one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity.'In his lifetime, the engineer, author, biologist, and activist worked alongside powerful men such as President Theodore Roosevelt, railroad executive E. H. Harriman, and conservationist Gifford Pinchot. Muir was responsible for the creation of the Sierra Club and he played an important role in preserving the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park.During his lifetime, Muir published six different volumes of nature and personal writing. After his death in 1914, four more volumes were discovered and released. In An Autobiography of John Muir, editor Stephen Brennan brings to light the many accomplishments of Muir's life through the naturalist's own nonfiction works, including The Story of My Boyhood and Youth and My First Summer in the Sierra.Through the essays featured in this book, readers will learn of Muir's childhood, which was split between Scotland and a farm in Wisconsin. They will travel the world with him, from the High Mountains to the Mono Trail, the Bloody Canyon, Yosemite, and everywhere in between.

Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory, and Life Writing offers comprehensive overviews by 14 academic scholars of the actual state of the field of Biography Studies. In the volume, edited by biography scholars Hans Renders and Binne de Haan, specifically the connections between biography and the fields of microhistory, journalism, and Life Writing illuminate key challenges and problems in studying individual lives. Different perspectives are provided on the ways in which biography contributes to scholarship in the humanities in general and academic historiography in particular. The contributing authors are academic experts in these fields and include Richard D. Brown, Carlo Ginzburg, Nigel Hamilton, Marlene Kadar, Giovanni Levi, Sabina Loriga, Matti Peltonen, and James Walter.

Every one of us is a witness to history. The times we live in will be studied and analyzed by future generations, just as we currently study and analyze the past. Autobiographies, oral histories, diaries and journals are records of the human experience, snapshots of a time and place that are brought to life in our consciousness through words on a page. In reading these works, we bear witness to and come to better understand the societies, cultures, and experiences of the past directly from the people who lived during those periods. Gale's LITERATURE OF SOCIETY SERIES, THE LITERATURE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE is a three volume set examining works that chronicle a life or are compiled from narrated memories. This helps us understand history more from a personal, rather than historical, level. Three hundred engaging entries focuses on autobiographies, diaries, journals and oral histories from around the world and various time periods to bring us closer to the human experience of history. Some entries look at those who carry on the tradition of oral history, such the West African Griot, Scandinavian Skald, British and Gaelic bards, Native American storytellers, and more.

This book considers first-person writing and the related questions of the formation of the self, the rise of the individual and the private/public debate, and places these considerations within a multicultural perspective. It compares the characteristics of European or Occidental personal writings (such as diaries, memoirs and autobiographies) with the written forms of personal, intimate and autobiographical self which have existed and continue to exist within various Asian, African or Near Eastern cultures. The book constitutes a call for a global history of personal writing. Ce livre s'intéresse, dans une perspective multiculturelle, à l'écriture de soi, et aux questions connexes de la formation même du soi, de l'émergence de l'individu ou encore du débat sur l'apparition des sphères privées et publiques. Il compare les caractéristiques de l'écrit personnel tel qu'il a eu cours en Europe ou dans les pays occidentaux (comme les journaux intimes, les mémoires, les autobiographies, entre autres) avec les formes écrites du soi personnel, intime ou autobiographique telles qu'elles ont pu exister, et existent, dans différentes cultures asiatiques, africaines ou proches-orientales. Ce livre lance également un appel pour une histoire globale des écrits personnels.

The autobiography has not always been acknowledged as true literature. Since 1970, however, American memoirs have revealed themselves as a respectable literary genre, distinct with an inimitable literary voice and a unique capacity to intersect narration and reflection. This study focuses critical attention on ten memoirs from the northern U.S. Rockies, including Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. By comparing memoirs representing states that share similar demographic, ecological, and socio-economic characteristics, this historic and literary analysis reveals both commonalities and divergences among American Western memoirs. Each chapter compares two books of similar thematic concerns, ranging from regional values and rural evolution to dynamic landscapes and the experiences of American Indians.