Outsider Biographies

Reviews / Votes

"Throughout, Magedera is attentive both to the blind spots and to the moments of intimate exchange between biographer and subject, and teases out some of their ethical implications. Magedera's study of the discourse of the 'outsider' prompts important questions which will be evaluated for a long time to come, resulting in some cases in a narrative framed by the ignominious killing of the outsider (Kelly, Billy the Kid) and elsewhere, as in Genet, in a standpoint of generalized opposition to 'everything else about the culture in whose language, by a broad consensus, he was held to excel' (p. 288)."

-David Houston Jones, University of Exeter, in: Modern Language review, Vol. 111, Iss. 2 (2016), pp. 535-536



"In Outsider Biographies, Ian Magedera offers a fascinating and nimble exploration of a specific sub-set of biographies of writers, the authors who combine their authorship with a documented criminal record. This is a markedly original and substantial contribution to life-writing studies."

-Jean-Marc Moura, professeur de litteratures francophones et de litterature comparee a l'Universite de Paris Ouest; membre de l'Institut Universitaire de France



"A well-researched, original and frequently entertaining contribution to the burgeoning field of biography studies. By focusing on a fascinating range of outsiders, from Johnson's Savage to Ondaatje's Billy the Kid, via biographers of de Sade and Rimbaud, Magedera casts light on a host of fascinating issues raised by biographical texts, often experimental in form, which explore deviant life histories. Engagingly written, Outsider Biographies will appeal to all those interested in new approaches to life-writing."

-Michael Sheringham, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature in the University of Oxford



"How do biographers interrogate towering figures such as Sade or Genet, Richard Savage or Billy the Kid? When criminal acts become the hinge between life and oeuvre, how do they enquire after presence, without eschewing the profound enigma of life and writing? With these biographical subjects, the ethical dimension inevitably sharpens fundamental epistemological questions. Ian Magedera expertly leads us through the maze of this fascinating subject, pursuing the genre's formal tensions by comparing francophone and anglophone traditions, from the eighteenth century to the present. Outsider Biographies is a masterpiece of analytical criticism."

-Jean-Pierre Dubost, professeur emerite de Litterature Generale et Comparee, l'Universite Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand



"As a comparative study, Outsider Biographies is always well argued and thought provoking, and the sections on French writers are particularly valuable (especially as all the French language material is cited in both the original and in English)."

-Joanne Wilkes, University of Auckland in New Zealand, in: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 53, Iss. 1 (2016), pp. 201-204



"Corralling biographical subjects from as wide a range as 1744-2000 into a coherent framework is hard enough: choosing ones who fit the themes of both 'base crime' and 'high art' makes this harder still. Yet Ian Magedera's engaging study accepts the risks head on. By using the very obliqueness of some of the connections as a means of interrogating biographical theories 'at the edge,' he obtains results which are ultimately original and productive."

-Jane Darcy, in: Biography, Vol. 38, Iss. 4 (2015), pp. 711-713