The contemporary theoretical scene on autobiography, or “life writing” (a term preferred by many of the newer critics), has been thriving in recent years, providing many different or even contradictory perspectives on this literary genre, whose definition and scope have frequently been reformulated.1 Situating myself within the framework built by such complex theoretical positionings and acknowledging the widespread critical concerns about the relevance of texts to political struggles, how narratives legitimize or function as accomplices of historical events, and matters of representation and representability of such events, I first focus here on the unstable and much-negotiated character of autobiography as a genre. Edward Said’s Out of Place: A Memoir (1999) and the heated debate that its publication caused allows me to illustrate some of the theoretical points discussed in the first part of my essay, as they represent a perfect case of the complex metamorphoses and changing parameters of autobiography. As Said is an exile who writes as a Palestinian and on behalf of Palestinians, I also attempt to probe into the inner mechanisms of autobiographical- historical writing, by applying Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire to my reading of Said’s memoir and its reception. Finally, I map the implications of personal memory, recollection, and writing a personal narrative in a context such as Said’s.
