Telling stories, creating (and saving) her life. An analysis of the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Abstract

Synopsis In this article the Dutch historian and biographer Mineke Bosch analyzes the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who in 1992 was admitted to the Netherlands as a Somalian refugee, and who in the wake of September 11, 2001 quickly rose to a prominent position at a national, and even international scale. Why did she publish an American ghostwritten autobiography at the age of 37? Was it a farewell document to the Netherlands – it was published first in a Dutch translation in October 2006 – or should we see the publication of Mijn vrijheid (My Freedom)/Infidel as a kind of credentials for the American nation? Bosch looks at Hirsi Ali's autobiography in the perspective of a long autobiographical tradition and strong feminist counter tradition with distinctive narrative lines, plots and counterplots, posing the question how Hirsi Ali presents her life. The reading reveals that the autobiography is indebted to the (male, archetypal and enlightenment) plot of individual accomplishment, as well as to a so-called “feminist orientalism”.