Both Simone and Benazir call themselves “daughter” in the title of their autobiographies (REF, REF), which can be inferred as an effect of the power of the parental impact in their life and in their self-image. Simone lived enough to write other versions of her own life in new autobiographies (Beauvoir, 1962, Beauvoir, 1965, Beauvoir, 1974). Her autobiographies vary in themes and is a vivid example of what Couser ( 2004, p.8) states when he says that “life writing can be fundamentally divided into first person and third-person forms, forms of autobiography and forms of (hetero)biography. Less obviously, but perhaps equally significantly, life writing can also be arranged along a time line; on this continuum the operative distinction is not between first- and third-person points of view but between first and last (i.e., earlier and later) words”.
On the other hand, Benazir’s autobiography is a text centred in her political life, and is strongly marked by her father’s death from the very first paragraph (Bhutto, 1989 p.4). Prefacing her autobiography she states: “This is my story, events as I saw them, felt them, reacted to them. It is not an in-depth study of Pakistan, but a glance into the transformation of a society from democracy to dictatorship. Let it also be a call for freedom” (Bhutto, 1989 Preface). According to Couser (2004, p.5) “autobiographers have made themselves public figures in a particularly deliberate and distinctive way – by publishing their own lives”. However, the main characteristic of Benazir’s autobiography is that it embraces mostly her already well-known public life rather than her intimacy. On the other hand is still truth that the publication of her version of the facts can be seen as she had “sacrificed, if not violated, their own privacy by the self-conscious publication of their private lives” (Couser, 2004, p.5). Simone probably went further in this violation of her privacy by the continuum of her four-volume autobiography.
To be continued
Evelyn, Simone and Benazir: singular women, unique biographies [the complete series]:
Biography in three genres: an introduction
Evelyn, Simone and Benazir: Singular women, distinctive biographies
- In the name of the father
- Faith and disbelief
- Education
- Marriage: three distinctive choices
- Before a strong woman there was a stronger man
Is it a hindsight[ful] biography? Looking at obituaries and other sources