'Shifting the focus from the idea of the privileged individual and focusing on the representation of identity within autobiography and biography, allows for different kinds of writing and reading practices. From this viewpoint the telling of 'life stories' can be read as a 'testimony' to a lived life, and as a form of 'resistance' literature.' Texts can, then, be read as sites of resistance and, at the same time, can reflect our own reading processes.' (Introduction)