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1. Zami Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, the author aptly refers to as a biomythography. In Zami, myths thought to be based on historical truths are reshaped; in the same way, Lorde’s story is reshaped by her distance from her memories and the choices she makes in portraying them. Language itself is given implicit power over truth, and Lorde reimagines herself not only in the respelling of her name, as referenced in the title, but also in how she recreates her history in her own retelling of it. The text moves from her childhood in Harlem to her discovery of herself as a Black queer woman in her adulthood.Her struggles with racism from her childhood in the 1920s and onward are candidly expressed and move from a childlike gaze to an adult one.
2. From Time to Time Hannah Tillich
Not many people will have heard of Hannah Tillich’s From Time to Time, but it’s one of my favourite feminist autobiographies. Tillich was initially criticized for publishing From Time to Time after her husband Paul Tillich’s death. It was suggested that Paul, a famous philosopher, should have been the subject of the book, but Tillich’s portrayal of herself is powerful beyond her portrayal of her husband. Her sexual escapades are provocative and powerful and create a sense of self-acceptance that is intoxicating.
3. Persepolis Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis is a graphic novel portraying Marjane Satrapi’s coming of age in Tehran during the Islamic revolution. Satrapi is stubborn, brutally sarcastic,outspoken, and so easy to fall in love with while reading this novel. The graphics create a sharp contrast between the childlike point of view of young Satrapi and the simultaneous violence occurring around her, allowing the reader to perceive both through the eyes of young Satrapi and the adult Satrapi, who is writing the book.
4. SHOUT Laurie Halse Anderson
SHOUT is a poetic memoir written by the bestselling author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson. The book utilizes various forms of poetry to showcase Anderson’s own reflections on the publication of Speak as well as her own experiences with trauma. Sometimes starkly honest, sometimes lyrically beautiful, this book allows a glimpse into how trauma is experienced and revisited throughout a lifetime. But Anderson goes beyond the experience of trauma itself, representing how we think of trauma as the event that occurred and how trauma actually manifests itself in memory.