Missing Persons

Auto/biography is currently one of the most popular literary genres, widely supposed to illuminate the study of the individual and her or his personal circumstances. Missing Persons is an introductory analysis of the genre which suggests that auto/biography is, infact, based on fictions, both about the person and about what is possible to know about any one individual. Chapters consider particular kinds of auto/biographical writing such as work on: * the British royal family * Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre * George Orwell The author demonstrates the absences and evasions, indeed the 'missing persons' of auto/biography. Missing Persons will be lively and stimulating reading for undergraduates on social sciences and humanities courses, particularly Women's Studies, Sociology, Literature and Cultural Studies.