The online Cambridge Dictionary defines memoir as “a book or other piece of writing based on the writer’s personal knowledge of famous people, places, or events”. In other words, a memoir is written from the perspective of the author, and the author’s perspective is formed by their culture, upbringing and
Last year the second edition of my grandmother’s memoir, Upheaval was published. It was the culmination of many years of research, not only from sources on the internet, in academia and in libraries, but also from documents which I inherited. Throughout the process I almost constantly wondered and debated about
I admit, I never thought I would find anything written by my grandfather which included the Russian Imperial Family. After all, it was my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, formally Countess Kleinmichel, who was known to be the writer in the family. She had written her memoir, Upheaval, detailing her life in
Booth Tarkington, who twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 1919 and 1922, wrote the Introduction to the original edition of my grandmother’s memoir, Upheaval. Upheaval was originally published in 1932, some four years after my grandparents migrated to America. I often wondered how it was that my grandmother
If you have ever wondered why I wanted to update my grandmother’s memoir, this post will explain all. When my father died in 2012 I inherited many documents, letters and photographs which were relevant to both sides of my family. For a couple of years they languished in boxes in
Several years ago I reread the book my grandmother had written in the early 1930’s, her memoir Upheaval. I have always been curious. From the moment I could formulate a question, I wanted to know “why”; why some things happened and others didn’t, why people made the decisions they made,