Memoir Autobiography

Autobiographical fiction is —well—fiction while memoir and autobiography are non-fiction. There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice to write memoir or to write autobiographical fiction. While one has a choice to write one or the other, one does not. Autobiography, Jorge Luis Borges, Memoir and Autobiography, Literatura argentina Using Personal Memoirs of Early Adolescence to Prepare for Teaching in the Middle Grades Save to Library.

Memoir Biography Autobiography
Difference Between Memoir And Autobiography
Memoir Autobiography Difference
Difference Memoir Autobiography

The three primary formats used to tell a life story are a biography, an autobiography, and a memoir. Distinguishing between the three can feel a bit confusing since they all share several similarities. But there are some distinct differences.

Simply put, a biography is the life history of an individual, written by someone else. An autobiography is the story of a person’s life, written by that person. And a memoir is a collection of memories written by the person themselves.

What is a Biography?

A biography, also called a bio, is a non-fiction piece of work giving an objective account of a person’s life. The main difference between a biography vs. an autobiography is that the author of a biography is not the subject.

Biographies include details of key events that shaped the subject’s life, and information about their birthplace, education, work, and relationships. Biographers use a number of research sources, including interviews, letters, diaries, photographs, essays, reference books, and newspapers. While a biography is usually in the written form, it can be produced in other formats such as music composition or film.

Examples of famous biographies include:

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald William Clark
Princess Diana – A Biography of The Princess of Wales by Drew L. Crichton

What is an Autobiography?

An autobiography is the story of a person’s life written by that person. Because the author is also the main character of the story, autobiographies are written in the first person.

The purpose of an autobiography is to portray the life experiences and achievements of the author. Therefore, most autobiographies are written later in the subject’s life.

They often begin during early childhood and chronologically detail key events throughout their life. Autobiographies usually include information about where a person was born and brought up, their education, career, life experiences, the challenges they faced, and their key achievements.

One of the main differences between an autobiography vs. a biography is that autobiographies tend to be more subjective. That’s because they are written by the subject, and present the facts based on their own memories of a specific situation, which can be biased.

Examples of famous autobiographies include:

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson

What is a Memoir?

Memoir comes from the French word mémoire, meaning memory or reminiscence. Similar to an autobiography, a memoir is the story of a person’s life written by that person.

The difference between a memoir vs. an autobiography is that a memoir focuses on reflection and establishing an emotional connection, rather than simply presenting the facts around their life. The author uses their personal knowledge to tell an intimate and emotional story about the private or public happenings in their life. The topic is intentionally focused and does not include biographical or chronological aspects of the author’s life unless they are meaningful and relevant to the story.

Examples of famous memoirs include:

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant

Autobiography vs. Biography vs. Memoir Comparison Chart

Biography	Autobiography	Memoir
An account of a person’s life	An account of one’s own life	A personal account of a specific time or experience
Written in the third person	Written in the first person	Written in the first person
Objective	Subjective	Subjective
Presents information collected from the subject, their acquaintances, or from other sources	Presents facts as they were experienced by the person	Presents facts as they were experienced by the person
Written to inform and establish a context	Written to inform and explain the motivation and thoughts behind actions and decisions	Written to reflect on and explore the emotion of an experience
Has restricted access to the subject’s thoughts and feelings	Offers access to personal thoughts and feelings	Offers access to personal thoughts, feelings, reactions, and reflections
Can be written anytime	Usually written later in life	Can be written anytime

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An autobiography differs from a memoir in a sense that an autobiography covers all the events of the narrator’s life in chronological order, whereas a memoir is a real-life experience of the author, that has a lesson or message to share with the readers. Due to many similarities between these two, many people get a bit confused and don’t understand, which form of literature is an autobiography and which one is a memoir.

While an autobiography covers the entire life of the writer, the memoir is about a part of life of the writer. Read the article provided below, in which substantial differences between autobiography and memoir are explained in detail.

Content: Autobiography Vs Memoir

Comparison Chart

Basis for Comparison	Autobiography	Memoir
Meaning	Autobiography refers to that form of literature in which a person writes or narrates his own life story.	A literary genre, containing memories, written by the individual on the incidents and events occurred to him in his life, is called memoir.
What is it?	An account of life.	An account from life.
Nature	Detailed	Centralized
Covers	Entire life of the author.	Particular section of life of the author.
Protagonist	First or third person	First person
Focuses on	All events of the life of the leading character.	Exploring significant event or incident in depth, in the memorist's life.
Order	Follows a chronological order.	Can begin anywhere.

Definition of Autobiography

Autobiography is a detailed account of an individual’s life, written or told by that individual himself. It is an abbreviated summary written in chronological order, that tells one’s experience in life, like the highs and lows, in different phases like childhood, adulthood and so on. Usually, they are written in the first person, ‘I’ and in this way the writer can easily express his views on the life events.

An autobiography can be written by the subject or the subject may hire a ghost writer, to write for them. It can be in the form of books, audio recording, drama, skit, documentaries or movies.

Definition of Memoir

The word ‘memoir’ is a French term which refers to reminiscence or remembrance. It is a memory written by the subject himself, in real time that presents a moral or message to the readers. It aims to explain how the subject learned a lesson from his experience or how he changed himself. The author of the memoir is called memorist. It covers a specific section, stage or time of the author’s life, that cause him to change like a turning point or a failure, etc.

Memoir Biography Autobiography

A memoir is a less formal, often friendly work, which is supposed to cover the details that are accurate and facts based. It is structure-less i.e. it can begin at any point.

Key Differences Between Autobiography and Memoir

The significant differences between autobiography and memoir are described in the points given below:

A form of literature, in which the subject writes or narrates his own life story, is known as Autobiography. The memoir is a literary genre, which is a collection of memories, written by the individual on the incidents and events occurred to him in his life.
An autobiography contains intricate details about the life events of the subject. On the other hand, a memoir is more centralised in nature which focuses on the specific events that happened to the author.
An autobiography covers the entire life of the subject, but a memoir spans a particular section or time or stage, of the memoirist’s life.
An autobiography is written in first or third person, whereas a memoir is written in the first person.
An autobiography focuses on all events of the life of the protagonist. In contrast, memoir, focuses on exploring any particular event or incident in depth, which is important to the memorist.
An autobiography follows a chronological order while a memoir is structure-less i.e. it does not follow any order like a novel, it can start at any point.

Similarities

Difference Between Memoir And Autobiography

Nonfictional literary genre.
Written by the subject himself.
Written in the first person.