Menu
Idea

autobiography

130
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Coretta Scott King sitting in front of a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.

America Has Gotten Coretta Scott King Wrong

Her ghostwritten autobiography diminishes her, and I found out why.
by Jeanne Theoharis via The Atlantic on April 7, 2025
Foggy hills in Appalachia.

Love in the Time of Hillbilly Elegy: On JD Vance’s Appalachian Grift

Justin B. Wymer knows a snake when he sees one.
by Justin B. Wymer via Literary Hub on August 27, 2024
Drawing of Asian Americans on an urban river boardwalk.

Return Flights

The memoirs of Korean adoptees, once full of confession and confusion, are now marked by confidence and rage.
by E. Tammy Kim via New York Review of Books on December 23, 2021

The Impossibility of Knowing Mark Twain

Even Twain's own autobiography cannot reveal the whole truth of the literary legend.
by Gary Scharnhorst via The Paris Review on January 9, 2018

The Miseducation of Henry Adams

Henry Adams's classic autobiography speaks to concerns of privilege, failure, and progress in his rapidly changing world.
by Michael Lindgren via The Millions on June 30, 2017
Donald Trump and Roy Cohn at a press conference.

Donald Trump’s Long Con

Trump’s “Art of” trilogy may be full of willful exaggeration, but the books also reveal how the 1980s and 90s formed his dog-eat-dog worldview.
by John Ganz via The Nation on April 7, 2025
Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull’s Life Contained Rock Music’s Secret History

The harrowing and heroic life of Marianne Faithfull, cheater of a thousand deaths and music history’s true avenging angel.
by Elise Soutar via Paste on February 4, 2025
Burgundy leather book cover with "Published By The Author" written in gold.

Self-Publishing and the Black American Narrative

"Published by the Author" explores the resourcefulness of Black writers of the nineteenth century.
by Tim Brinkhof, Bryan Sinche via JSTOR Daily on December 11, 2024
Buffy of the Fat Boys playing turntables in 1985.

Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop

An elegiac retelling of rap's origins, "Hip-Hop Is History" also ends with a sense of hope.
by Bijan Stephen via The Nation on August 27, 2024
John Andrew Jackson riding a galloping horse and tipping his hat.
partner

How Do We Tell a Tale of People Who Sought to Disappear?

The life of John Andrew Jackson — and the vacillating richness and scarcity of the archive.
by Susanna Ashton via HNN on August 13, 2024
Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Covers of paperbacks by white journalists who tried living as African Americans.

The Strange History of White Journalists Trying to “Become” Black

"To believe that the richness of Black identity can be understood through a temporary costume trivializes the lifelong trauma of racism. It turns the complexity of Black life into a stunt."
by Alisha Gaines via Nieman Lab on June 17, 2024

Friends and Enemies

Marty Peretz and the travails of American liberalism.
by Jeet Heer via The Nation on May 14, 2024
Patti Davis sits for a portrait with her pug, Lily, at her home.

For Years, the Reagans' Daughter Regretted Some Things She Wrote. Now She's at Peace.

Patti Davis has spent a lifetime chronicling her life with parents Ronald and Nancy Reagan. In a new book, 'Dear Mom and Dad,' she reckons with them as people.
by Mary McNamara via Los Angeles Times on February 6, 2024
A photograph of John G. Neihardt raising his fists to box.

A Tale of Two Visionaries

What roiled the mind of Nebraska poet John Neihardt with whom Black Elk, the iconic Lakota holy man, shared his story?
by Gus Mitchell via JSTOR Daily on December 13, 2023
A photograph of Louisa May Alcott.

Nonfiction That Rivals Little Women: The Forgotten Essays of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott is best known for Little Women, but she earned her first taste of celebrity as an essayist.
by Liz Rosenberg via Literary Hub on October 24, 2023
Martha Hodes (left) and her sister, Catherine, joint passport photo.

The Historian Who Lost Her Memory of a Hijacking

At 12 years old, Martha Hodes was on board a hijacked plane and was taken hostage for a week. How did she forget much of the experience?
by Jacob Bacharach via The New Republic on July 25, 2023
Tennessee Williams

How Thomas Lanier Williams Became Tennessee

A collection of previously unpublished stories offers a portrait of the playwright as a young artist.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on July 3, 2023
Tina Turner singing on stage

America Loved Tina Turner. But It Wasn’t Good To Her.

Over the course of her 83 years, the megawatt star that was Tina Turner kept telling us who she was in the hopes that we would see her — all of her.
by Soraya Nadia McDonald via Andscape on June 6, 2023
Andrea Casali: The Personification of History Writing on the Back of Time, early 1760s

Ego-Histories

The more that historians make their own experiences an explicit part of their work, the harder it will become to let the sources speak clearly.
by David A. Bell via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Will Smith as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Tracing the Evolution of Celebrity Memoirs, from Charles Lindbergh to Will Smith

Creating a personal myth allows celebrities to create just that—a myth.
by Landon Y. Jones via Literary Hub on May 9, 2023
Cast of the opera "Omar" on stage, with Arabic script on the stage backdrop.

‘Tell Your Story, Omar’

A new, Pulitzer Prize–winning opera adapts the memoir of Omar ibn Said, an African Muslim who spent much of his life enslaved in North Carolina.
by Edward Ball via New York Review of Books on May 4, 2023
Mark Wallinger's "Self-Portrait," a painting showing black dripping paint in the silhouette of an unfurled scroll on a grey background

The Illusion of the First Person

The personal essay is the purest expression of the lie that individual subjectivity exists prior to the social formations that gave rise to it.
by Merve Emre via New York Review of Books on October 11, 2022
The author, as a young girl, standing in front of a wall.

As If I Wasn’t There: Writing from a Child’s Memory

The author confronts the daunting task of writing about her childhood memory, both as a memoirist and a historian.
by Martha Hodes via American Historical Review on September 19, 2022
Collage of documents and photographs relating to Younghill Kang.

Younghill Kang Is Missing

How an Asian American literary pioneer fell into obscurity.
by Esther Kim via Asian American Writers' Workshop on September 7, 2022
Headshot illustration of Angela Davis

‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’

For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via New York Review of Books on September 1, 2022
Hellen Keller portrait

The Atlantic Writers Project: Hellen Keller

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
by Ellen Cushing via The Atlantic on July 11, 2022
Bernard Lynch's slave pen in St. Louis, with many potential buyers standing outside.

The Remarkable Story of Mattie J. Jackson

Her narrative documents the very real dangers enslaved runaways experienced while traveling through so-called "free states" of the North.
by Nick Sacco via Muster on March 29, 2022
Illustration of Elizabeth Keckley

Elizabeth Keckley's Memoir Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four in the White House

Keckley’s decision to write about her employers from the viewpoint of a household laborer--she was seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln--enraged audiences.
by Dorothy Berry, James Olney, Carme Manuel, Janet Neary, Carolyn Sorisio via JSTOR Daily on March 10, 2022
Ernest Hemingway and his wife Mary Welsh.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Close your eyes and imagine you’re married to Ernest Hemingway. Now, imagine it twice as bad, and you’ll be approaching the life story of Mary Welsh Hemingway.
by Anne Margaret Daniel via The Spectator on February 20, 2022
View More
30 of
130

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History