Beyond Autobiography: Hybrid Testimony and the Art of Witness

This essay identifies a particular mode of testimonial writing, ‘hybrid testimony’, which is produced through creative collaborations between victims of historical violence and professional writers. Through analysis of two autobiographical responses to the civil wars in Sudan — Slave: The True Story of a Girl’s Lost Childhood and Her Fight for Survival (2004), by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis, and What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006) by Dave Eggers — it considers whether hybrid testimony should be considered a distinct genre in its own right, reflecting on the cultural, historical and political forces that determine the ways that this literature is written and read.