LETTERS
21 March 2009
Dear Reader,
Why commission a Biography?
Winston Churchill, the late British Prime Minister and Nobel prize-winning writer, who understood the power of the written word and its impact on history, who understood that generally victors are the ones who record history, who knew not to risk allowing others to write his own history, is reputed to have said: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." If you care about your place in history, if you care how posterity will remember you, if you care about your offspring and their descendents, then don‘t take chances that some historian will be gentle with you, take history by the horns, and ensure that history is kind to you, by writing your biography now, before your time is up, before it is too late, before you yourself are history.
Writing is not dissimilar to other creative arts, such as cooking. First a cook needs to gather all the ingredients that he needs, then he needs to embark on a process of cutting and chopping, mixing and marinating, baking and cooking, and lastly he has to apply the finishing touches so that his creation is a feast to all our senses, first to our sense of sight, then to our sense of smell, and lastly to our sense of taste, a combination that elevates simple nourishment to a high state of art.
Just as in cooking, writing a biography requires that a writer gather all the ingredients he needs, such as letters, articles, interviews, photographs, maps, family trees, timelines, and favourite quotations. Some of these ingredients will need to be cut and chopped, mixed and marinated, edited and re-edited, again and again, until the biography is almost ready for the printer. Naturally, you will have an opportunity to taste a sample of this feast. When ready, the book designer will apply the finishing touches by transforming the manuscript into a work of elegance, after which the indexer will scour the book so you can readily find all the salient information, and the proof-reader will remove any last minute mistakes, before your biography, your version of history, your feast of words is placed in the printer‘s oven.
The eminent American poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "There is properly no history, only biography," re-enforcing Churchill‘s own statement that history is made by individuals, who write it. You have run the race, you have fought the battle, you have told your story. In so doing, you have secured your place in the memory and love of your children and their children, and for generations to come. Time waits for no man, so seize the day.
George Jerjian