Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:31:46.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Truth-Telling

Reportage and Creative Nonfiction

from Part III - Generic Representations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2019

Crystal Parikh
Affiliation:
New York University
Get access

Summary

Traditional investigative journalism maintains a commitment to neutral objectivity, but the genre of creative nonfiction, in which writers are deeply immersed in complex and rapidly shifting social and political conditions, has proven to be one of the most durable genres of human rights literature. On the one hand, reportage often enjoys the documentary authority of the first person observer. However, the intensely personal relationship of the writer to his or her subject also entails vexed questions of how they represent the experiences of human rights subjects (whether victims or survivors), the usually uneven structural relations of power between the writer and subject, and the ethical good or harms enacted by the representations themselves. This chapter turns to reportage and other first-person documentary prose, including Human Rights Watch press releases, Addario’s The Forever War, and Angelina Jolie’s Notes from my Travels to examine both the appeals and difficulties the genre poses for representing human rights victims and struggles.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Truth-Telling
  • Edited by Crystal Parikh, New York University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698511.013
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Truth-Telling
  • Edited by Crystal Parikh, New York University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698511.013
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Truth-Telling
  • Edited by Crystal Parikh, New York University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698511.013
Available formats
×