Ante-Autobiography and the Archive of Childhood

Abstract

This essay examines the concept of children's autobiography via several autobiographical extracts written by the author as a child. Although only a small proportion of people will compose and publish a full-length autobiography, almost everyone will, inadvertently, produce an archive of the self, made from public records and private documents. Here, such works are seen as providing access to writing both about and by children. The essay explores the ethics and poetics of children's writing via the key debates in life writing; in particular, the dynamic relationship between adults and children, both as distinct stages of life and dual parts of one autobiographical identity. The term “ante-autobiography” is coined to refer to these texts which come before or instead of a full-length narrative. They are not read as less than or inadequate versions of autobiography, but rather as transgressive and challenging to chronological notions of the genre.

Keywords:

• archive
• adulthood
• autobiography
• childhood
• memory
• power

Notes

1. The primary texts around which this article is shaped are, by their nature, unpublished. A small sample has been reproduced here in facsimile form to allow the reader to consider the materiality of the object as well as the textual content. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the same author has produced the primary texts (as a child) and the analysis of them (as an adult). Throughout, great care was taken to remain attuned to the ethics of writing about oneself, paying particular attention to the fragile intimacies and insecurities of relating to oneself as a child.

2. Indeed, the absence of official life documents can be a source of extreme hardship and exclusion. Those who are considered “sans papiers,” such as illegal immigrants, are all too aware of the perceived illegitimacy of the undocumented life.

3. Material circumstances are patently relevant here. Poverty and displacement are among the factors likely to preclude the production and preservation of childhood documents. At the same time, recent developments in technology have enhanced governmental capacity to preserve public records on an international scale.

4. There are, as ever, exceptions. In fiction, Christopher Paolini wrote his popular Eragon books, at the age of 15. The most lauded child writer of the last century was Anne Frank whose wartime diary established a precedent for the power and lasting significance of such narratives long after her death.

5. Concorde was an iconic supersonic jet, the result of collaboration between the British and French aviation industries. Since only 20 were built in its limited lifetime of 1976–2003, spotting its distinctive shape in the air may well have seemed newsworthy in 1988.

6. The major text on this topic supports this contention even in its very title (Alexander and Juliet).