Michel Foucault published two autobiographies: one of Pierre Rivière and the other of Herculine Barbin. In this article, I take his introduction to the collected volume Vies Parallèles as a key to explaining how he conceived the two works and what he intended by publishing them. Parallel lives are those whose differences condemn them and set them apart. Nonetheless, in the precise moment in which this movement of separation operates, some of them leave behind traces: their autobiographies. These instantaneous and glowing traces illuminate conflicts that are soon forgotten under the shadows of stigma, but that nonetheless construct our subjected subjectivity.
Foucault; Autobiographies; Parallel Lives; Subjectivity