Autobiography vs biography

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Grammarist

An autobiography is a literary genre that is the story of a person’s life written by that person, the one who lived the life. The plural is autobiographies, the adjectives are autobiographical and autobiographic, the adverb is autobiographically. Autobiography comes from the Greek auto- which means regarding oneself, bio– which means life and -graphia which means writing, the word was coined in 1809.

A biography is a literary genre that is the story of a person’s life written by someone else who did not live that life. The plural is biographies, the adjectives are biographical and biographic, the adverb is biographically. The person who writes the biography is the biographer. Biography comes from the Greek bio- which means life and -graphia which means writing.

Examples

Variety reports that Rousey will star in a film adaptation of My Fight/Your Fight, her bestselling autobiography released earlier this year. (TIME)

We were quite dumbfounded,” Kalam, then the director of DRDO’s Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) writes in his autobiography Wings of Fire (The Indian Express)

In 2005, her autobiography What’s It All About? became a best-seller. (The New Zealand Herald)

One stands out, as much the biography of the business itself as of the two extraordinary personalities who founded, built and shaped it into “the most complete work experience of any major public corporation, ever.” (Financial Advisor Magazine)

Biography tells story of Diane von Furstenberg, whose wrap dress defined an era. (Providence Journal)

What a fabulous idea: a graphic biography of Apple co-founder (and its latter-day savior) Steve Jobs. (Miami Herald)

The outgoing finance minister immediately updated his Twitter biography to read: ‘Economics professor, quietly writing obscure academic texts for years, until thrust onto the public scene by Europe’s inane handling of an inevitable crisis.’ (The Daily Mail)

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