This chapter considers Jawaharlal Nehru's autobiographies An Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946) as at once nation- and self-making books. It suggests that the two books worked together to exert a shaping influence on the postcolonial world. In his autobiographies, Nehru (1889-1964) mobilized his readers to think of themselves as citizens and also supplied them with a new independent temporality with which to identify. As such, Nehru's two books became icons and models for the leader's (auto)biography across the postcolonial world.
