Self, life and writing : autobiography as scriptotherapy in Edawrd Said and Abdelwahab Elmessiri

Abstract EN

This paper explores two autobiographies/memoirs where writing an autobiography serves as scriptotherapy for intellectuals, helping them out of their Olympian detachment and providing a therapeutic effect that helps relieves their inner dilemmas.

The two autobiographies/memoirs addressed by this paper are: Edward Said’s Out of Place: A Memoir (1999), and Abdelwahab Elmessiri's Rehlaty Al Fikriyah: Fi al Gozoor wa al Bozoor wa al Themar: Sira Ghayr Zatiyah Ghayr Mawdw`iyah (My Intellectual Journey: of Seeds, Roots and Fruits: a Non-objective, Non-subjective Autobiography) (2006).

Though the two intellectuals have not been through a traumatic experience as such, they have experienced moments of extreme anguish and their ‗selves‘ have been shaped and re-shaped by a number of inner dilemmas and surrounding challenges.

The paper is arranged around a number of subthemes related to the central theme of autobiography as scriptotherapy.

The paper starts by highlighting the hardships and conflicts encountered by both intellectuals through their journeying in place and time.

It then addresses the ultimate centrality of ‗writing‘, and more particularly of the 'confessional act‘ of writing to these intellectuals as evident in their autobiographies and elsewhere.

For Edward Said 'writing' was a means to help him put his disseminated 'self' back together and re-assemble the varied components of his identity at odd with each other.

Similarly, one reason Elmessiri wrote his many books and encyclopedias to relieve the many personal and intellectual anxieties he was subject to and the various dilemmas he had to resolve.

Testimonial writing grants the space needed for the 'self' to contemplate its own identity and to reflect on its journeying through life, re-experiencing vitality, re-considering life choices and most of all get relieved of the burden of having a confession to tell.