Many communities are not privileged enough to possess histories which also reflects their precarious position in the sociocultural hierarchy. As Trouillot observed, ‘History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis become superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility, the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots’. (Trouillot, 1995, p. 19) Thus, the possession of history scripted or otherwise is a privilege seldom granted equally. For millennia, many groups and communities like African Americans, women, tribals, and the former untouchables in India did not exist in history. The semantics of cultural and ideological domination ensured that such people were invisibilized and silenced. Is it possible to recover or reconstruct the histories of the silenced people? This article argues that the genre of autobiography is a vital source to represent the peoples without histories.

许多社区没有足够的特权拥有历史，这也反映了他们在社会文化等级中不稳定的地位。正如特鲁约所说，“历史是权力的果实，但权力本身从来都不是透明的，以至于它的分析变得多余。权力的终极标志可能是它的隐形、终极挑战、其根源的暴露。(Trouillot, 1995, p. 19) 因此，拥有脚本或其他方式的历史是很少被平等授予的特权。几千年来，历史上并不存在许多群体和社区，例如非裔美国人、妇女、部落和印度以前的贱民。文化和意识形态统治的语义确保这些人被隐形和沉默。是否有可能恢复或重建沉默者的历史？本文认为，自传体裁是代表没有历史的民族的重要来源。