Samuel Pepys’s diary of a somebody
Kate Loveman’s history of a national treasure preserves Pepys’s charm while revealing a discomfiting historical world.
ByBiographies
Read all the latest reviews from New Statesman writers of biographies and memoirs.
Xi Jinping’s daddy issues
The Chinese president’s concept of power was forged by the suffering of his revolutionary father, Xi Zhongxun.
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Jacinda Ardern’s unexamined life
In her memoir, the former prime minister seems more concerned with the symbols of politics than the actual politics the prompted…
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Giorgia Meloni’s selective memory
The Italian prime minister’s autobiography revises her and her country’s history. But Meloni’s success is a template for right populist…
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Martha Wainwright, in her own right
The musician’s career has been helped and hampered by her famous name – and her live shows embody her struggle…
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The ghost of Muriel Spark
In her work and life the writer was obsessed with biography – but when she authorised her own she loathed…
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Gertrude Stein’s quest for fame
The modernist phenomenon believed bad attention was better than none at all.
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The Yoko Ono problem
As David Sheff’s new biography reveals, decades of suspicion aimed at the provocative artist, musician and widow have obscured her…
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The contested life of Roger Casement
The Irish nationalist was caught in the fault lines between empire and nation, colonised and coloniser, public face and private…
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The confessions of Pope Francis
Can Hope, his autobiographical meditations on migration, sexuality and war, assuage a Catholic church in crisis?
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James Salter’s machismo myth
The all-action American novelist is praised for his virile heroics – but it was his instinct for “the feminine” that…
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The making of an American conservative
Rob Henderson’s memoir Troubled paints a bleak picture of poverty in the US. Are liberal “luxury beliefs” to blame?
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Searching for Frantz Fanon
Was the elusive revolutionary thinker naive, or ahead of his time?
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The triumph of King Charles
Robert Hardman’s obsequious biography pays court to a monarch who is enjoying his power over a deferential nation.
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József Debreczeni’s letter from the land of the dead
A rediscovered memoir from an Auschwitz survivor offers powerful lessons for our own reckonings with the Holocaust.
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The visions of Werner Herzog
In creating wild and strange new worlds, the German film-maker reveals the truth of our own.
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Elon Musk’s death drive
The tech billionaire built a world that he could rule – then allowed it to destroy him.
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The lies we tell about Joan Didion
The late author may be the most misunderstood writer in the American canon.
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The madness of Burton and Taylor
Roger Lewis’s book about the lives of the married actors isn’t really a biography – it’s a fever dream.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lessons for losers
In his unlikely fourth act, the former movie star is a self-help guru who trades in the toughest of tough…
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