English 中文网 漫画网 爱新闻iNews 翻译论坛
中国网站品牌栏目(频道)
当前位置: Language Tips> 天天读报> 每日播报

Mandela book offers his personal portrait

[ 2010-10-12 13:41]     字号 [] [] []  
免费订阅30天China Daily双语新闻手机报:移动用户编辑短信CD至106580009009

进入英语学习论坛下载音频 去听写专区一展身手

Nelson Mandela failing classes, fussing over his children, fighting with his wife.

This is not the anti-apartheid icon of Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela's 1995 autobiography. Conversations with Myself, which goes on sale on Tuesday in 22 countries and 20 languages including Catalan and Turkish, presents a more human Mandela, faults, frailties and all.

Conversations was compiled with the 92-year-old former South African president's blessing by a team of archivists, editors and collaborators who worked from decades of notes, letters, recorded conversations and other material.

In a foreword, US President Barack Obama writes that Mandela, who largely retired from public life in 2004, is inspiring even if he is no saint.

"Underneath the history that has been made, there is a human being who chose hope over fear - progress over the prisons of the past," Obama wrote. "And I am reminded that even as he has become a legend, to know the man ... is to respect him even more."

Conversations is best read as a companion to Long Walk, which was in part calculated by Mandela and other members of his African National Congress party to stir support for anti-apartheid activists as they stepped into new roles as leaders trying to heal and develop a divided, impoverished nation.

As he puts it in Conversations, an autobiography of "a freedom fighter must inevitably be influenced by the question whether the revelation of certain facts, however true they may be, will help advance the struggle".

Certainly, the possibility of violence within Mandela's first marriage, to Evelyn Mase, who died in 2004, had no place in the official autobiography. But it has been raised elsewhere, including in Young Mandela, an unauthorized biography by British writer David James Smith that appeared earlier this year.

In Conversations, Mandela puts his version on record. In a transcript of a conversation with Ahmed Kathrada, a friend and fellow veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle who was helping him polish Long Walk, Mandela denies he once tried to choke his first wife. Instead, he said, she threatened to burn him with a red hot poker.

"So I caught hold of her and twisted her arm, enough for me to take this thing out," Mandela says.

"The poker away," Kathrada responds.

Mandela: "That's all."

Questions:

1. How old is Nelson Mandela?

2. What country is he the president of?

3. What is the name of the book?

Answers:

1. 92 years old.

2. South Africa.

3. Conversations with Myself.

去听写专区一展身手

(中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑)

Mandela book offers his personal portrait

About the broadcaster:

Mandela book offers his personal portrait

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.

 
中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
 

关注和订阅

人气排行

翻译服务

中国日报网翻译工作室

我们提供:媒体、文化、财经法律等专业领域的中英互译服务
电话:010-84883468
邮件:translate@chinadaily.com.cn