The paper investigates Yasin al-Hafiz’s autobiographies in the context of the disappointment of the post-1967 era and the concomitant transformation in the political horizon, registers of critique and political subjectivities of a generation of modernist Arab intellectuals. al-Hafiz’s autobiographical writings set the stage for the quest of a new self, amidst the turbulent transformations of this era, one that is captured, following Scott, by the notion of tragedy. The tragic character emerges out of the impossibility of a reconciliation between the two intertwined narratives of his biography: the narrative of gradual emancipation from his society on one hand, and the repetition of thwarted political beginnings on the other. The conclusion of this twin trajectory is a disengagement from the history of Arab thought and from politics, setting the basis for the emergence of the figure of the critical or ‘detached’ intellectual.