"Blurbing" Biographical: Authorship and Autobiography

Abstract

In the community that consumes autobiographical writing, how is the author positioned, and what are the implications of this positioning? One method for exploring the author construct and its impact upon readership is the initial point of introduction and consumption of the material autobiographical text: the book jacket. Book jackets provide the glue binding author and text together; they are the site where the author's biography meets with marketing and criticism. This is especially acute in autobiographies, where the constructed author is such an integral part of a book's reception. Despite its public visibility, however, book publicity, and its particular significance to discussions of authorship, is one issue that has remained mostly unexamined.