Writing neo-memoirs
11 December 2010
By Mahmoud Ebadian, writer and philosophy researcher
A distinctive feature of neo-memoirs is their direct contact with war events and the people related to war. Memoirs are mainly reports with thought provoking traces void of any discrete literary devices.
IBNA: The human move forward in the course of life not only encompasses different literary genres, it also develops requisite genres.
New genres form on the event of social movements. One of the examples of such movements was the outbreak of the Iraq-imposed war on Iran which led to the formation of a new literary form: memoirs.
Memoir writing addressed the memories written by soldiers and peoples in the front line and war bases.
Memory is a newly developed genre of war literature. It is comparable with short stories in length being disparate in theme and plot. Memories should be distinguished from memoirs which are a distinct literary genre which form a subclass of autobiography.
A distinctive feature of neo-memoirs is their direct contact with war events and the people related to war. Memoirs are mainly reports with thought provoking traces void of any discrete literary devices.
The event should be reported so vividly by the writer which resemble the same images in the reader''s mind as those who really engaged in the event.
The genre seems to be formed spontaneously and in pursuit of some aims: to report and record the events as the writer has seen them, to show the corresponding reactions and to disseminate the whole process.
Memoirs were more acclaimed during the war but it is very improbable that no further adoptions of the genre be assumed.
Iran Book News Agency (IBNA)
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