I had been considering the persistence of Black authored memoirs/autobiographies as a form Black writers adopt for their storytelling, and then, I wondered how the numbers of published autobiographies would break down according to the authors’ gender identities.
I searched the mid and late 20th century and the 21st century periods of publication in the Literary Navigator Device (across a total of roughly 75 years), selecting autobiographies/memoirs as the “Reading Form” for each. I selected all genders first, to get total works published in this form, and then limited by Black men authors, Black women authors, and so forth in each period of publication.* Black men authors produced 6 of the 7 autobiographies/memoirs noted in the literary navigator device in the mid-20th century (1940-1965). Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road stands out as the lone Black woman authored work among the autobiographical works of Black men in that period of publication, who include Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Claude Brown, James Weldon Johnson, and Richard Wright.
But would there be a gender publication shift in the latter part of the 20th century, I wondered? More like assumed. Yes, indeed. The Navigator Device tracks 13 noted autobiographies/memoirs from 1966 – 1999. 10 of these are by Black women. The 21st century period marks 16 publications of autobiographies/memoirs by noted Black women authors, with 8 authored by Black men.
The results suggest that over the course of 75 years, both Black men and Black women alike find life writing forms to be fruitful literary avenues for their authorial work. They also suggest that Black women authors and popular and public figures in particular have found the form to be a significant productive outlet.
* While my searches by “Author Gender” included selecting and limiting by nonbinary identities, the Literary Navigator Device did not show returns for these limits.
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