The Paradox of ‘Impersonal Autobiography’: Albert Luthuli’s Let My People Go

Abstract

Autobiographies are about selves, and one can reasonably expect that in writing an autobiography the authorial subject is making a claim of personal significance, and is, in the text, engaging in self-assertion and self-display. Might one not then question whether an autobiography which strives to portray the autobiographical subject’s selflessness could be effective? This is an important issue in relation to Albert Luthuli’s Let My People Go (1962) since it typically foregrounds politico-historical analysis, in keeping with the narrative’s evident the didactic intent, and diminishes focus on the autobiographical subject. The autobiography depicts an autobiographical narrator and subject who embrace humility and the ideal of selflessness. Luthuli’s narrator ensures that readers know that he is not laying claim to his own importance, and he does this in part by adopting strategies such as reminding readers of the exemplary shape of his experience and his lack of ambition in relation to his political career. Furthermore, Luthuli is reticent about his private life and personal relationships. Nonetheless, Let My People Go is effective as autobiography; this is because – not in spite of – of its portrayal of the autobiographical subject’s selfless self. In this article I make a case for renewed attention to Luthuli’s autobiography and argue that readers learn a great deal about the autobiographical subject – and his ethical values – through the narrator’s refusal to engage in self-display.