Out with the old, in with the new

I am restructuring the biogs.com site and have decided to get rid of the articles page but I wanted to keep the info - so, my solution is to dump some of it here...

The Harvill Press edition of Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees features an excellent 'afterword' by the author's daughter, Aline Giono - which the webmaster proposes to discuss at a later date. We would be grateful if anybody can provide any helpful background on the genesis of The Man Who Planted Trees

On 13th August, 2002 The Independent published an obituary of Michael De-la-Noy. The most interesting thing about it was that the man wrote it himself! It was the first time they had published an 'auto-obituary'. Does anybody know of any other instances where this has happened? Please let us know.

In an article in The Guardian (31 August 2002), JDF Jones poses this question: "What is he[the biographer] to do if he discovers that it [the truth]is anathema to the family that commissioned him?". Jones continues: "Is he to abandon the book - the thoguht occured to me more than once - since he certainly cannot suppress or delete the facts he had unearthed?"

His biography of Laurens van der Post was authorised by the subject's family. Jones says: "... but on publication was described by some as that unusual creature a 'hostile' authorised biography. Some of Laurens's family and friends were understandably distressed ..."

I'd be interested in knowing what others think. But certainly there must be perils involved in an 'authorised' biography. Obviously convenient post-rationalising is not good enough. To justify ones acts by moral codes such as duty to the reader only paper over the real issues. In the end it must come down to openness and the nature of the undertakings made to every party in each specific case.

Can anyone let me know where autobiographies have been written that put their author in a bad light? In the same issue of The Guardian as Jones (see above)talks about the authorised biography, the footballer Roy Keane is reported as saying: 'There's no point in doing the book if I was going to be saying things like 'he's a jolly good fellow' and 'that was just an accident'.I have to be honest. If I'm going to be charged by the FA, I'll deal with that when it comes. I won't lose sleep over it ...Maybe I've been a bit too up front but so what."