Do you think memoirs can be trusted?

CBC News

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Sep 26, 2006
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There are questions being raised about yet another memoir: Heart of Fire by Eritrean-German author Senait Mehari. First published in German, the book tells how her father sent her to train as a solder with the Eritrean Liberation Front when she was just six. Now her publisher has had to retract and pay libel damages over part of the memoir, and she is admitting that she never held a gun.
Several memoirs have been called into question over the last few years. After James Frey’s drug abuse memoir A Million Little Pieces was exposed as partially fabricated, a memoir of prostitution by T.J. LeRoy was also found to be fictional. There have even been questions asked about Ishmael Beah’s child soldier memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
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Is the memoir falling into disgrace as a literary form? Do you think memoirs can be trusted?


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talloola

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Nov 14, 2006
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No. Other than what the public know to be true, anything can be written, just another story, for someone to make profit.

If I were writing my memoirs, there would be all sorts of information that I would not write,(don't like whining about myself, and I would think others don't want to read about whining and complaining) so, immediately it would not be accurate, and I wonder if I would add a few
interestings happenings that 'didn't' happen at all, might be more interesting for the
reader.;-)
I don't really know, have never given it much thought.
 
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