biographer
A biographer , also a biographer ( ancient Greek βίος bíos “life” and γράφειν gráphein “write”) is the author of a biography , as a specialist historian , non-fiction author , genealogist , writer or layman. Biographers dedicate their work to preserving life stories in writing, images, sound or other forms and can be writers , authors (including ghostwriters ), audio book producers and filmmakers .
The Greek Xenophon can be seen as the first ancient biographer in the narrower sense in the fourth century BC .
The literary biographer deals with the creation of works, the bandwidth of which ranges from historical-biographical novels to rewriting of a résumé to fictional-biographical historical novels .
A biography does not necessarily have to be written after the death of a person, especially in the case of politicians, artists or other public figures, biographies are often written during their lifetime. The border to autobiography is blurred here if the text is written by the biographer on behalf of the person treated and / or in collaboration with them.
See also
literature
- Bernhard Fetz , Wilhelm Hemecker (Ed.): Theory of Biography. Basic texts and commentary. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-023762-7 ( De Gruyter Studies ; table of contents ).
- Christian Klein (Ed.): Basics of Biography. Theory and Practice of Biographical Writing. Metzler, Stuttgart a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-476-01904-7 . (Literary, social, historical aspects, legal and practical questions)