Private letters, public authority: intimacy and distance in Quaid-e-Azam’s epistolary life writing

This article examines the epistolary life writing of Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a site where personal subjectivity and political authority intersect. Lacking an official autobiography, Jinnah's letters function as indirect self-representation, shaping identity through address, restraint, and strategic expression. Drawing on a purposive sample of nine letters from Pirzada's edited collection and Wolpert's biography, the article applies close textual reading informed by life-writing theory to letters addressed to colonial authorities, political rivals, and tradesmen. The analysis suggests that his correspondence performs authority rather than merely recording it, highlighting juridical precision, emotional discipline, and strategic silence.