Both autobiography and a memoir talk about someone’s life, but there’s a difference..

An Autobiography

An autobiography is written by a person about his or her own life. It’s a first-person point of view of their entire life. It comes from a Greek word that means, “self-life write”.

Also, autobiographies tend to be more formal than memoirs and are told according to a chronology (events in the order they took place).

Usually, autobiographies are written by famous people and they document their life – things like their early life, rise to fame, important events, etc.

A Memoir

Memoirs are those in which someone writes about his or her life’s particular experiences. It usually talks about a particular event or part of their life. People who write memoirs normally use their memories to tell an engaging story. Unlike autobiographies, they don’t tell about events in a chronological manner.

The word memoir (pronounced mem-o-r) comes from a French for memory.

Some examples of great autobiographies and memoirs

•  My Experiments with Truth – Mahatama Gandhi
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Some famous memoirs..

• All Creatures Great and Small: The Warm and Joyful Memoirs of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Doctor
• Tuesdays With Morrie: An old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson

Know of any you’ve read? Tell us 🙂

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