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An autobiographical novel is a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
 based on the life of the author. The literary technique
Literary technique

A literary technique or literary device is an identifiable rule of thumb, convention or structure that is employed in literature and storytelling....
 is distinguished from an autobiography
Autobiography

An autobiography is a biography written by its subject . The term was first used by the poet Robert Southey in 1809 in the English language Periodical publication Quarterly Review, but the form goes back to antiquity....
 or memoir
Memoir

As a literature genre, a memoir , or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography ? although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are today almost interchangeable....
 by the stipulation of being fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
. Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic but the story still bears a close resemblance to that of the author. While the events of the author's life are recounted, there is no pretense of neutrality or even exact truth.






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An autobiographical novel is a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
 based on the life of the author. The literary technique
Literary technique

A literary technique or literary device is an identifiable rule of thumb, convention or structure that is employed in literature and storytelling....
 is distinguished from an autobiography
Autobiography

An autobiography is a biography written by its subject . The term was first used by the poet Robert Southey in 1809 in the English language Periodical publication Quarterly Review, but the form goes back to antiquity....
 or memoir
Memoir

As a literature genre, a memoir , or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography ? although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are today almost interchangeable....
 by the stipulation of being fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
. Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic but the story still bears a close resemblance to that of the author. While the events of the author's life are recounted, there is no pretense of neutrality or even exact truth. Events may be reported the way the author wishes they had been with enemies more clearly loathsome and triumphs more complete than perhaps they actually were.

Because writers somewhat draw on their own experiences in most of their work, the term autobiographical novel is difficult to define. Novels that portray settings and/or situations with which the author is familiar are not necessarily autobiographical. Neither are novels that include aspects drawn from the author’s life as minor plot details. To be considered an autobiographical by most standards, there must be a protagonist
Protagonist

A protagonist is the main Character of a drama or Narrative. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek language p??ta????st?? , "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the othe...
 modeled after the author and a central plotline that mirrors events in his or her life.

Novels that do not fully meet these requirements or are further distanced from true events are sometimes called semi-autobiographical novels.

Many first novels, as well as novels about intense, private experiences such as war
War

...
, family
Family

Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some cultural anthropology have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts r...
 conflict or sex
Sex

In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetics traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into male and female types ....
, are written as autobiographical novels.

Some works openly refer to themselves as 'nonfiction novels.' The definition of such works remains vague. The term was first widely used in reference to the non-autobiographical In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood is a 1966 book by Truman Capote.In Cold Blood may also refer to:* In Cold Blood , a 1967 film and 1996 miniseries, both based on the book...
 by Truman Capote
Truman Capote

Truman Capote was an United States writer whose short stories, novels, plays, and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "non-fiction novel"....
 but has since become associated with a range of works drawing openly from autobiography. A central focus of the non-fiction novel is the development of plot through the means of fictional narrative styles. The emphasis is on the creation of a work that is essentially true, often in the context of an investigation into values or some other aspect of reality. The books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Pirsig's metaphysics of quality....
 by Robert M. Pirsig
Robert M. Pirsig

Robert Maynard Pirsig is an United States writer and philosopher, mainly known as the author of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values , which has sold over four million copies around the world....
 and The Tao of Muhammad Ali
The Tao of Muhammad Ali

The Tao of Muhammad Ali is a book by the American author Davis Miller, published in 1996. The autobiographical account is notable for its blending of fact with some elements of fiction writing to create a 'non-fiction novel.' An opening statement notes that some events have been modified for dramatic effect but 'in essence' the book is tr...
 by Davis Miller
Davis Miller

Davis Miller is an American author notable for a series of books combining reportage and coming-of-age autobiography. His best known works are the non-fiction novel The Tao of Muhammad Ali, and the fictionalized memoir The Tao of Bruce Lee, both of which were critically acclaimed number-one bestsellers in the United Kingdom and in Japan....
 open with statements admitting to some fictionalising of events but state they are true 'in essence.'

Semi-autobiographical novel


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

Notable autobiographical novels

See also: :Category:Autobiographical novels


  • Charles Dickens
    Charles Dickens

    Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
    , David Copperfield
    David Copperfield (novel)

    David Copperfield or The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1850....
     (1850)
  • Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist and Education reform made him the most influential member of the aristocracy Tolstoy....
    , Childhood
    Childhood (novel)

    Childhood is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiography trilogy first published in the Russian literary journal "Sovremennik" in 1852. This book describes the major physiological decisions of boyhood that all boys experience....
     (1852)
  • Charlotte Brontë
    Charlotte Brontë

    Charlotte Bront? was a United Kingdom novelist, the eldest of the three famous Bront? sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature....
    , Villette
    Villette (novel)

    Villette is a novel by Charlotte Bront?, published in 1853. After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance....
     (1853)
  • Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist and Education reform made him the most influential member of the aristocracy Tolstoy....
    , Boyhood
    Boyhood (novel)

    Boyhood is the second novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiography trilogy, following Childhood and followed by Youth . The novel was first published in the Russian literary journal "Sovremennik" in 1854....
     (1854)
  • Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist and Education reform made him the most influential member of the aristocracy Tolstoy....
    , Youth
    Youth (Tolstoy novel)

    Youth is the third novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiography trilogy, following Childhood and Boyhood ....
     (1856)
  • Thomas Hughes
    Thomas Hughes

    Thomas Hughes was an England lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended....
    , Tom Brown's School Days (1857)
  • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
    Fitz Hugh Ludlow

    Fitz Hugh Ludlow, sometimes seen as ?Fitzhugh Ludlow,? was an American author, journalist, and explorer; best-known for his autobiographical book The Hasheesh Eater ....
    , The Hasheesh Eater
    The Hasheesh Eater

    The Hasheesh Eater is an autobiographical book by Fitz Hugh Ludlow describing the author's altered states of consciousness and philosophical flights of fancy while he was using a cannabis sativa extract....
     (1857)
  • Charles Dickens
    Charles Dickens

    Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
    , Great Expectations
    Great Expectations

    Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens first serial ised in All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It is regarded as one of his greatest and most sophisticated novels, and is one of his most enduringly popular, having been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
     (1860), which has many autobiographical elements but to a lesser extent
  • Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
    Little Women

    Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . Written and published in two parts in 1868 in literature and 1869 in literature, the novel follows the lives of four sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March — and is loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters....
     (1868)
  • Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
    The Way of All Flesh

    The Way of All Flesh is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family....
     (1903)
  • D. H. Lawrence
    D. H. Lawrence

    David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an England author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary criticism. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization....
    , Sons and Lovers
    Sons and Lovers

    Sons and Lovers is a novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence....
     (1913)
  • Jack London
    Jack London

    Jack London was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf along with many other popular books....
    , John Barleycorn
    John Barleycorn (novel)

    John Barleycorn is an autobiographical novel by Jack London dealing with his struggles with alcoholism. It was published in 1913. The title is taken from the United Kingdom folksong John Barleycorn....
     (1913)
  • Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
    Of Human Bondage

    Of Human Bondage is a novel by William Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention."...
     (1915)
  • James Joyce
    James Joyce

    James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Ireland expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ....
    , A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a autobiography novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916 in literature....
     (1916)
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald
    F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an United States writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself....
    , This Side of Paradise
    This Side of Paradise

    This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920 in literature, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth....
     (1920)
  • Marcel Proust
    Marcel Proust

    Valentin Louis Georges Eug?ne Marcel Proust was a France novelist, essayist and critic, best known as the author of In Search of Lost Time , a monumental work of twentieth-century fiction published in seven parts from 1913 to 1927....
    , In Search of Lost Time
    In Search of Lost Time

    In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a semi-autobiographical novel in heptalogy by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its extended length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the Madeleine "....
     (1927), aka A Remembrance of Things Past
  • Ernest Hemingway
    Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
    , A Farewell to Arms
    A Farewell to Arms

    A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1929. Much of the novel was written at Pfeiffer House and Carriage House in Piggott, Arkansas....
     (1929)
  • Thomas Wolfe
    Thomas Wolfe

    Thomas Clayton Wolfe was an acclaimed American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short story, dramatic works and novel fragments....
    , Look Homeward, Angel
    Look Homeward, Angel

    Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 in literature novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiography United States Bildungsroman....
     (1929)
  • Louis Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night
    Journey to the End of the Night

    Journey to the End of the Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand C?line. This semi-autobiographical work follows antihero Ferdinand Bardamu through his involvement in World War I, colonial Africa, and post-WWI United States , returning in the second half of the work to France, where he becomes a medical Physician and sets up a practice...
     (1932), as well as "Death on Credit" (also, "Death on an Installment Plan") and subsequent books as well.
  • Gertrude Stein
    Gertrude Stein

    Gertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and Modernist literature....
    , The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
    The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

    The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a 1933 book by Gertrude Stein, written by Stein in the style of an autobiography by her lover, Alice B....
     (1933), a mock autobiography of Stein's secretary and companion purported to be Toklas's views of Stein.
  • Henry Miller
    Henry Miller

    Henry Valentine Miller was an United States novelist and Painting. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of...
    , Tropic of Cancer
    Tropic of Cancer (novel)

    Tropic of Cancer is a novel by Henry Miller, first 1934 in literature by Obelisk Press in Paris. Its 1961 in literature in the United States by Grove Press led to an obscenity trial that was one of several that tested American laws on pornography in the 1960s....
     (1934)
  • Ayn Rand
    Ayn Rand

    Ayn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system called Objectivism ....
    , We, the Living (1936)
  • Henry Miller
    Henry Miller

    Henry Valentine Miller was an United States novelist and Painting. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of...
    , Tropic of Capricorn
    Tropic of Capricorn (novel)

    Tropic of Capricorn is a semi-autobiographical novel by Henry Miller, first published in Paris in 1938. The novel was subsequently banned in the United States until a 1961 Justice Department ruling declared that its contents were not obscene....
     (1939)
  • James A. Michener
    James A. Michener

    James Albert Michener was an United States author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which are novels of sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in a particular geographic locale and incorporating historical facts into the story as well....
    , The Fires of Spring (1949), semi-autobiographical
  • Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
    The End of the Affair

    The End of the Affair is a novel by United Kingdom author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films that were adapted for the screen based on the novel....
     (1951)
  • Ralph Ellison
    Ralph Ellison

    Ralph Waldo Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man , which won the National Book Award in 1953 in literature....
    , Invisible Man
    Invisible Man

    Invisible Man, a novel written by Ralph Ellison. It was the only novel that Ellison published during his lifetime, and it won him the National Book Award in 1953 in literature....
     (1952)
  • James Baldwin
    James Baldwin (writer)

    James Arthur Baldwin was an United States novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist.Most of Baldwin's work deals with racism and human sexuality issues in the mid-20th century in the United States....
    , Go Tell It on the Mountain
    Go Tell It on the Mountain (novel)

    Go Tell It on the Mountain is a 1953 semi-autobiographical novel by James Baldwin . The novel examines the role of the Christian Church in the lives of African-Americans, both as a source of repression and moral hypocrisy and as a source of inspiration and community....
     (1953)
  • Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow

    Saul Bellow , was an acclaimed Canada-United States writer born in Canada of Russian-Jewish origin. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988....
    , The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
  • William S. Burroughs
    William S. Burroughs

    William Seward Burroughs II was an United States novelist, essayist, social critic, Painting and spoken word performer.Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his experiences as an opiate addict, a condition that marked the last fifty years of his life....
    , Junkie
    Junkie (novel)

    Junky is a semi-autobiography novel by William S. Burroughs. First published in 1953, it was Burroughs' first published novel and has come to be considered a seminal text on the lifestyle of heroin addicts in the early 1950s....
     (1953)
  • James Agee
    James Agee

    James Rufus Agee was an United States author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S....
    , A Death in the Family
    A Death in the Family

    A Death in the Family is an autobiographical novel by author James Agee, set in Knoxville, Tennessee. He began writing it in 1948, but it was not quite complete when he died in 1955....
     (1957)
  • Jack Kerouac
    Jack Kerouac

    Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and Painting. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation....
    , On the Road
    On the Road

    On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957 in literature. It is a largely Autobiography work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America....
     (1957)
  • Jack Kerouac
    Jack Kerouac

    Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and Painting. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation....
    , The Dharma Bums
    The Dharma Bums

    The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The semi-fictional accounts in the novel are based upon events that occurred years after the events of On the Road....
     (1958)
  • Elie Wiesel
    Elie Wiesel

    Elie Wiesel is a Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, the best known of which is Night , a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several Nazi concentration camps....
    , Night
    Night (book)

    Night is an autobiopgraphy by Elie Wiesel based on his experience as a young Orthodox Judaism of being sent with his family to the German concentration camps at Auschwitz concentration camp and Buchenwald concentration camp during the World War II....
     (1958), sometimes considered an autobiographical novel although classified as a memoir by the author.
  • Ian Fleming
    Ian Fleming

    Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English literature author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling his adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories....
    , (1960's) Some of the James Bond experiences are based in his own World War II spy missions.
  • Nikos Kazantzakis
    Nikos Kazantzakis

    Nikos Kazantzakis was arguably the most important and most translated Greece writer and philosopher of the 20th century. Yet he did not become well known globally until the 1964 release of the Michael Cacoyannis film Zorba the Greek , based on Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek whose English translation has the same title....
    , Report to Greco (1961)
  • Sylvia Plath
    Sylvia Plath

    Sylvia Plath was an United States poet, novelist and short story writer.Known primarily for her poetry, Plath also wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas....
    , The Bell Jar
    The Bell Jar

    The Bell Jar is United States writer and poet Sylvia Plath's only novel, which was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963 in literature....
     (1963)
  • Kenzaburo Oe
    Kenzaburo Oe

    is a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, engage with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism....
    , A Personal Matter
    A Personal Matter

    A Personal Matter is a novel by Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe . The novel is replete with imagery of death, decay and sex.Written in 1964, the novel is dark, deeply personal, and semi-autobiographical....
     (1964)
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer
    Isaac Bashevis Singer

    Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Nobel Prize in literature-winning Poland-born United States author and one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literature movement....
    , In My Father's Court, (1966)
  • Frederick Exley
    Frederick Exley

    Frederick "Fred" Exley, was an United States of America novelist best known as the author of A Fan's Notes....
    , A Fan's Notes
    A Fan's Notes

    A Fan's Notes is a novel by Frederick Exley, first published in 1968. Subtitled "A Fictional Memoir" and categorized as fiction, the book is somewhat autobiographical....
     (1967)
  • Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the 1969 autobiography about the early years of writer and activist Maya Angelou. The first in a six-volume series, it is a Bildungsroman that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma....
     (1969)
  • Hunter S. Thompson
    Hunter S. Thompson

    Hunter Stockton Thompson was an United States journalist and author, most famous for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of journalism where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories....
    , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (novel)

    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, illustrated by Ralph Steadman....
     (1971)
  • Rita Mae Brown
    Rita Mae Brown

    Rita Mae Brown is a prolific United States writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time....
    , Rubyfruit Jungle
    Rubyfruit Jungle

    Rubyfruit Jungle is the first novel by Rita Mae Brown, remarkable for its explicit lesbianism. The novel is a bildungsroman/autobiography account of Brown's youth and emergence as a lesbian author....
     (1973)
  • Robert M. Pirsig
    Robert M. Pirsig

    Robert Maynard Pirsig is an United States writer and philosopher, mainly known as the author of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values , which has sold over four million copies around the world....
    , Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Pirsig's metaphysics of quality....
     (1973)
  • Pat Conroy
    Pat Conroy

    Pat Conroy , is a New York Times New York Times bestseller list author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs....
    , The Great Santini
    The Great Santini

    The Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a highly successful United States Marine Corps officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father....
     (1976)
  • Samuel R. Delany
    Samuel R. Delany

    Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. is an award-winning United States science fiction author. He has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection , Nova , Hogg , Dhalgren, and the Return to Nev?r?on series....
    , Heavenly Breakfast (1979)
  • Philip K. Dick
    Philip K. Dick

    Philip Kindred Dick was an United States science fiction novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysics themes in novels dominated by monopoly corporations, Authoritarianism, and altered states of consciousness....
    , VALIS
    VALIS

    VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's Gnosticism vision of one aspect of God....
     (1981), perhaps the only book that could be considered both an autobiographical novel and a work of science fiction
    Science fiction

    Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
  • Isabel Allende
    Isabel Allende

    Isabel Allende Llona, , is a Chilean-United States novelist. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realism" tradition, is one of the first successful women novelists in Latin America....
    , The House of Spirits (1982), includes many elements from her family history (the notions of family
    Family

    Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some cultural anthropology have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts r...
     and personal identity
    Identity (social science)

    Identity is an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences to describe an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity....
     are closely linked in Latin America
    Latin America

    Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....
    n culture)
  • Charles Bukowski
    Charles Bukowski

    Henry Charles Bukowski , was a German American poet, novelist and short story. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, California, and is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of marginalized poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, the dru...
    , Ham on Rye
    Ham on Rye

    Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by United States author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski?s thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years....
     (1982)
  • J. G. Ballard
    J. G. Ballard

    James Graham Ballard is a United Kingdom novelist and short story writer. He was a prominent member of the New Wave in science fiction. His best known books are the controversial Crash , and the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, both of which have been adapted to film....
    , Empire of the Sun
    Empire of the Sun

    Empire of the Sun is a 1984 in literature novel by J. G. Ballard which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Although like Ballard's earlier short story, "The Dead Time," published in the anthology Myths of the Near Future, it is essentially fiction, like the earlier story it draws extensively on Ballard's experiences in Wo...
     (1984)
  • Marguerite Duras
    Marguerite Duras

    Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director....
    , The Lover
    The Lover

    L'Amant is an autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, published in 1984 by Les ?ditions de Minuit. It has been translated to 43 languages and was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt....
     (1984)
  • Jeanette Winterson
    Jeanette Winterson

    Jeanette Winterson Order of the British Empire is a British novelist....
    , Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a novel by Jeanette Winterson published in 1985, which she subsequently Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit into a BBC television drama....
     (1985)
  • Samuel R. Delany
    Samuel R. Delany

    Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. is an award-winning United States science fiction author. He has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection , Nova , Hogg , Dhalgren, and the Return to Nev?r?on series....
    , The Motion of Light in Water
    The Motion of Light in Water

    The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village is an autobiography by science fiction author Samuel R. Delany in which he recounts his experiences as growing up a gay African American, as well as some of his time in an interracial and open marriage....
     (1988)
  • Tim O'Brien
    Tim O'Brien (author)

    Tim O'Brien is an United States novelist who mainly writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War and the impact the war had on the American soldiers who fought there....
    , The Things They Carried
    The Things They Carried

    The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien , about a platoon of United States soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990....
     (1990)
  • Davis Miller
    Davis Miller

    Davis Miller is an American author notable for a series of books combining reportage and coming-of-age autobiography. His best known works are the non-fiction novel The Tao of Muhammad Ali, and the fictionalized memoir The Tao of Bruce Lee, both of which were critically acclaimed number-one bestsellers in the United Kingdom and in Japan....
    , The Tao of Muhammad Ali
    The Tao of Muhammad Ali

    The Tao of Muhammad Ali is a book by the American author Davis Miller, published in 1996. The autobiographical account is notable for its blending of fact with some elements of fiction writing to create a 'non-fiction novel.' An opening statement notes that some events have been modified for dramatic effect but 'in essence' the book is tr...
     (1996), described as a 'non-fiction novel'.
  • Homer Hickam
    Homer Hickam

    Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys, was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film October Sky....
    , Rocket Boys
    Rocket Boys

    Rocket Boys is the first memoir in a series of three, by Homer Hickam It is a story of growing up in a mining town, and a boy's pursuit of amateur rocketry in a pure company mining town....
     (1998)
  • James Frey
    James Frey

    James Christopher Frey is an United States writer. He graduated from Denison University and also attended Art Institute of Chicago#The School....
    , A Million Little Pieces
    A Million Little Pieces

    A Million Little Pieces is a controversial memoir by James Frey. It tells the story of a 22-year-old alcoholic and drug abuser and how he copes with rehabilitation in a Twelve-step program-oriented treatment center....
     (2003), marketed as a memoir
    Memoir

    As a literature genre, a memoir , or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography ? although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are today almost interchangeable....
     before a media controversy questioned its accuracy.
  • Tobias Wolff
    Tobias Wolff

    Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an United States author.He is best known for his short stories and his memoirs, although he has written two novels ....
    , Old School
    Old School (novel)

    Old School is a novel by Tobias Wolff. It was first published on November 4, 2003, after three portions of the novel had appeared in The New Yorker as short stories....
     (2003), loosely based on Wolff's life although more novel than biography.
  • James Frey
    James Frey

    James Christopher Frey is an United States writer. He graduated from Denison University and also attended Art Institute of Chicago#The School....
    , My Friend Leonard
    My Friend Leonard

    My Friend Leonard is a memoir written by James Frey. Continuing where A Million Little Pieces left off, the book centers on the father-son relationship Frey and his friend from Hazelden, Leonard, shared....
     (2005)
  • Mohammad Ali with Hana Yasmeen Ali, The Soul of a Butterfly
    The Soul of a Butterfly

    The Soul of a Butterfly is the autobiography of Muhammad Ali , arguably the greatest heavyweight in history, and one of the most famous and iconic figures of the 20th Century....
     (2004)
  • Sherman Alexie
    Sherman Alexie

    Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr. is an award-winning and prolific author and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a modern Native Americans in the United States....
    , The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is a novel for young adults written by Sherman Alexie. It is written in the first-person narrative, from the viewpoint of Indigenous peoples of the Americas adolescence and budding cartoonist Arnold Spirit, Jr....
     (2007)
  • Daniel Selby
    Daniel Selby

    Daniel J. Selby is an American model , actor, singer, and author.Selby started out in California as a print model for clothing stores such as Mervyns and Gap in 1970....
     Retracing My Steps (2009)


See also

  • Roman à clef
    Roman à clef

    A roman ? clef or roman ? cl? is a novel describing real life, behind a fa?ade of fiction. The 'key' is usually a famous figure or, in some cases, the author....