Cirrus@Austlit

'Writing memoir can create self-understanding; and reading, or listening to, the life stories of others can promote empathy through a deep engagement with the lives of other people. However, telling, or listening to, a complicated or traumatic life story is not without risks. Remembering and attributing meaning to events always talks place within a context. When I was a child my family was caught up in complex, violent, postcolonial Cold War politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uncertain subject positions, political complexities, and concerns for family members can all mean that complex judgments must be made about when, if, and how to tell stories like mine. Shared family experiences do not necessarily mean shared family meanings, or shared understandings about what information to conceal and what to reveal. Using insights from the fields of narrative writing, memory and trauma studies, I draw on two autobiographies, Alison Bechdel’s Fun home, and Ruth Kluger’s Still alive, along with my own experiences of life writing, to examine why certain memories or testimonies may be silenced in public and private discourses of remembering.' (Publication summary)