Biography is related to a recount of the main events of a person ‘s existence in a chronological way. Biographies constitute a genre with its own entity and are maintained through a discourse structure that makes it highly identifiable. In general, they focus on characters whose life has had some degree of social transcendence , either positively or negatively. In the case of a biography about a person who is alive, it is customary to ask for authorization and participation in data collection ; when your answer is in the affirmative, it is an authorized biography, on the contrary, it is considered an unauthorized biography.
It may be helpful to know at what point a recount and evaluation of a person’s life began. Arguably, some of the characteristics that today can be defined as biographies could be present in antiquity, but it was not because of the invention of the printing press and the proliferation of innovative work that the discourse became frequent. Nowadays it can be considered a work, as it presents details of a person’s life for around half a century. However, if the genre is still flourishing, it is because there are undoubtedly readers for it and a great demand for the main events of the character.
There is a type of biography that is performed by the character in question, the so-called autobiography. It could be argued that it is very difficult for an individual to objectively speak out about his own person, although exceptions are always possible. However, the biographies with the most credit are those written by individuals who are simply interested in telling the truth about what happened and in carrying out this task as sincerely as possible. In fact, hiding some details as well as exalting others can make the same person look different. That’s why academics tend to keep a certain distance from events to write a biography, especially if their activity is guided by the plan of historiography.
