ABSTRACT
In every culture narrative forms and models are used when stories about life are told. We know how life is to be narrated and how the story ought to appear. The roots of the models for writing a life story are partly in the Western literary tradition of autobiographies and partly in everyday story-telling. Familiarity with these models for writing ensures an acceptable life narrative that meets the public’s requirements, but at the same time it enables the production of a particular, personal and unique story. The autobiographer sees the act of writing the story as a negotiation concerning the cultural expectations she believes the reader connects with autobiography as a genre. In order to narrate herself and her life, the writer can make use of the entire vocabulary and figurativeness provided by the models of the surrounding culture, and still she can master this in a fashion which distinguishes her from other writers.
