Memoir Examples

Memoir is a type of literature that is very similar to a biography or an autobiography. A biography is an account of someone's life written by someone else. An autobiography is an account of one's own life. While all three of these are an account of someone's life, a memoir is a personal account of someone's own life that is focused on a specific theme, event, or time period. In contrast, an autobiography tends to chronicle the entirety of someone's life.

Memoir is often not just about chronicling events, but also gets at the emotional experiences and feelings of the writer as well. This is another way that it is somewhat different from an autobiography.

Elie Wiesel's Night is a memoir. Wiesel tells the story of his personal experiences during the Nazi Holocaust in the early 20^th century.

Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir about the friendship between a young Mitch and the elderly Morrie, a college professor who is dying.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCort is a memoir of Frank's childhood in Ireland and his family's attempts to escape poverty.

Dreams from my Father is a memoir by President Obama.

Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is a memoir of Hemingway's time as a young expatriate writer living in France in the 1920s.

Susana Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted is a memoir that chronicles Kaysen's time as a young woman in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.

True Compass is a memoir by Edward Kennedy.