Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle: a note on Autobiography of a Marguerite
Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle reflects on Autobiography of a Marguerite, her debut poetry book re-released by Giramondo (April 2026) in which she explores chronic illness, familial dysfunction and the discovery of a sense of self. The book is published simultaneously with her new collection, Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama, and follows her popular novella, Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life.
I began thinking about this book in 2011, when I was working on another manuscript (Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama) and studying life writing and autobiography at the University of Auckland. Reading and thinking about George Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood and My Life by Lyn Hejinian were important precursors to working on Autobiography of a Marguerite. In 2012, I was enrolled in the Master of Creative Writing programme at Victoria University of Wellington. My thesis intention was to write an innovative autobiography about family and illness, and that became Autobiography of a Marguerite.
I developed a chronic inflammatory illness at age 14, which has affected and continues to affect my day-to-day life. I did not get to have a normal teenage experience of partying or hanging out with friends, instead I was worrying about how and when my body would further deteriorate, whether I’d lose my eyesight or my ability to walk, what side effects medications would have, and whether I’d be able to achieve any of my future goals and dreams. I spent a lot of time at medical appointments and at home, bored and depressed.
In writing the book, however, I did not want to write about a journey of my particular specific illness, rather I wanted to explore the social aspect of illness in relation to identity and family, and I wanted to use illness as a concept, to illustrate the struggle for autonomy and a sense of self, tying it in with a relationship where the daughter struggles to separate herself from her mother. And in order to write this book, in particular the middle section, I decided to follow the writing advice of ‘write as if your parents are dead.’ My mother was not pleased when she found out her name was in the title of the book. Before it came out, whenever people asked her about it, she pretended to forget the name.
As with Leaves Fall Off to Create Drama, I was interested in the idea that we subconsciously choose to be ill because it fulfils certain internal needs. In a family system where co-dependency and enmeshment are present (diminished boundaries and diminished sense of agency) I believe autoimmune disease is likely to develop. The immune system is a boundary between you and the outside world, and the first task of the immune system is distinguishing self from non-self. Modern medicine describes autoimmunity as the immune being unable to distinguish between self and non-self and begins to attack its own tissues. To me, autoimmunity is a response to repressed agency and repressed anger, and the body pointing to the need for boundaries – physical, emotional, spiritual. In the book, it is often difficult to distinguish the narrator from her mother. The mother’s past affects the daughter in the present, and the daughter’s present affects the mother’s concept of the past. ‘It is not even a story… The happening is still happening… We are not ill, but needy…’
I wanted to use illness as a concept, to illustrate the struggle for autonomy and a sense of self.
