Imaginaries of Loss: the Case of Grief Memoirs

Abstract Recently, grief memoirs have gained momentum in the storytelling boom. They have also inspired and shaped current theorising in the philosophy of grief. However, the possibilities and limitations of memoirs for capturing grief experiences have received limited philosophical attention and critical reflection. In redressing this issue, I propose that memoirisation can help navigate and negotiate the recurrent temporal dynamics of grief by offering opportunities for configuring self-referential narrative structures. Specifically, memoirisation can give narrative form to the connections between the re-imagined past, the immediate present, and the pre-imagined future in response to the irrevocable loss of a significant person.