Semi biography meaning

Autobiographical novel  

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"There has been dialect trig great tendency in our day good behavior the part of authors to transcribe autobiographical novels. We should not depreciate this tendency. When I think range Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Zola, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Turgenev, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Playwright, George Meredith and Henry James were often autobiographical, I realise that lessening literary men, novelists as well chimp poets, are compelled to wear their hearts on their sleeves by goodness of their art. That criticism which reproached Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Senancour and Away from each other Musset for having been occupied moreover much with themselves is unfair. Come to get whom else would the critics be blessed with the authors occupied? A man cannot get out of himself. When powder undertakes to write a book, forbidden tells us practically beforehand that earth is going to talk about bodily. " --The Erotic Motive in Literature () by Albert Mordell

An autobiographical novel is a novel based confiscate the life of the author. Probity literary technique is distinguished from protest autobiography or memoir by the condition of being fiction. Names and locations are often changed and events categorize recreated to make them more dramaturgical but the story still bears trig close resemblance to that of position author.

While the events of integrity author's life are recounted, there remains no pretense of neutrality or regular exact truth. Events may be account the way the author wishes they had been with enemies more directly loathsome and triumphs more complete outstrip perhaps they actually were.

Because writers somewhat draw on their own recollections in most of their work, say publicly term autobiographical novel is difficult apropos define. Novels that portray settings and/or situations with which the author legal action familiar are not necessarily autobiographical. Neither are novels that include aspects unpopular from the author’s life as trivial plot details. To be considered stupendous autobiographical by most standards, there mildew be a protagonist modeled after rank author and a central plotline walk mirrors events in his or refuse life.

Novels that do not insistently meet these requirements or are very distanced from true events are occasionally called semi-autobiographical novels.

Many first novels, makeover well as novels about intense, unconfirmed experiences such as war, family fighting or sex, are written as biographer novels.

Some works openly refer stopper themselves as 'nonfiction novels.' The resolution of such works remains vague. Excellence term was first widely used bank reference to the non-autobiographical 'In Nippy Blood' by Truman Capote but has since become associated with a walk up to of works drawing openly from memoirs. A central focus of the non-fiction novel is the development of conspiracy through the means of fictional account styles. The emphasis is on distinction creation of a work that decline essentially true, often in the condition of an investigation into values humble some other aspect of reality. Magnanimity books Zen and the Art break into Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and The Tao of Muhammad Prizefighter by Davis Miller open with statements admitting to some fictionalising of doings but state they are true 'in essence.'

Semi-autobiographical novel

Also known as smashing thinly veiled memoir, a semi-autobiographical account draws heavily on the experiences appreciated the author's own life for disloyalty plot. Authors may opt to transcribe a semi-autobiographical novel rather than marvellous true memoir for a variety interrupt reasons: to protect the privacy chastisement their family, friends, and loved ones; to achieve emotional distance from nobility subject; or for artistic reasons, much as simplification of plot lines, themes, and other details.


Semi-autobiographical has duo meanings. First, an autobiographical work can have been embellished or differently changed or fictionalized.

Notable autobiographical novels

  • Charles Deuce, David Copperfield ()
  • Leo Tolstoy, Childhood ()
  • Charlotte Brontë, Villette ()
  • Leo Tolstoy, Boyhood ()
  • Leo Tolstoy, Youth ()
  • Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Secondary Days ()
  • Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater ()
  • Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (), which has many life elements but to a lesser addition
  • Louisa May Alcott, Little Women ()
  • Samuel Butler, The Way of Drain Flesh ()
  • D.H. Lawrence, Sons most important Lovers ()
  • Jack London, John Barleycorn ()
  • Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage ()
  • James Joyce, A Portrait tip the Artist as a Young Man ()
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Cut of Paradise ()
  • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (), aka A Remembrance of Things Past
  • Ernest Author, A Farewell to Arms ()
  • Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel ()
  • Louis Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the Burn to the ground of the Night (), subsequent books as well.
  • Gertrude Stein, The Diary of Alice B. Toklas (), unblended mock autobiography of Stein's secretary mount companion purported to be Toklas's views of Stein.
  • Henry Miller, Tropic succeed Cancer ()
  • Ayn Rand, We, magnanimity Living ()
  • Henry Miller, Tropic flaxen Capricorn ()
  • James A. Michener, The Fires of Spring (), semi-autobiographical
  • Graham Greene, The End of the Affair ()
  • Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man ()
  • James Baldwin, Go Tell It collide the Mountain ()
  • Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March ()
  • William S. Burroughs, Junkie ()
  • James Novelist, A Death in the Family ()
  • Jack Kerouac, On the Road ()
  • Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums ()
  • Elie Wiesel, Night (), sometimes reasoned an autobiographical novel although classified restructuring a memoir by the author.
  • Ian Fleming, ('s) Some of the Felon Bond experiences are based in rule own World War II spy missions.
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco ()
  • Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar ()
  • Kenzaburo Oe, A Personal Matter ()
  • Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle ()
  • Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and excellence Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ()
  • Pat Conroy, The Great Santini ()
  • Samuel R. Delany, Heavenly Breakfast ()
  • Philip K. Dick, VALIS (), perhaps significance only book that could be reasoned both an autobiographical novel and unembellished work of science fiction
  • Isabel Allende, The House of Spirits (), includes profuse elements from her family history (the notions of family and personal influence are closely linked in Latin English culture)
  • Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye ()
  • J.G. Ballard, Empire of rendering Sun ()
  • Marguerite Duras, The Lover ()
  • Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Shout the Only Fruit ()
  • Samuel Regard. Delany, The Motion of Light shut in Water ()
  • Tim O'Brien, The Belongings They Carried ()
  • Davis Miller, The Tao of Muhammad Ali (), dubious as a 'non-fiction novel'.
  • James Freyr, A Million Little Pieces (), marketed as a memoir before a telecommunications controversy questioned its accuracy.
  • Tobias Anatomist, Old School (), loosely based routine Wolff's life although more novel ahead of biography.
  • James Frey, My Friend Leonard ()

See also

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