Call number
Collection
Publication
New York, NY : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
Pages
xxi; 454
Description
This historic collection of documents archived at the Nelson Mandela Foundation offers an unprecedented insight into Mandela's remarkable life--from his first stirrings of political consciousness to his galvanizing role on the world stage.
Media reviews
Conversations with Myself isn't so much a book as a literary album, containing snippets of Mandela's life, shards from diaries, calendars, letters, and also transcripts from 50 hours of recordings by Richard Stengel, who ghosted Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (and is now editor of
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Time magazine). It also contains passages from an autobiography Mandela had been working on himself, in moments snatched here and there, but has finally abandoned, and allowed to be folded into this volume.
If that all sounds somewhat scattershot and untidy, oddly it's not. The book is intensely moving, raw and unmediated, told in real time with all the changes in perspective that brings, over the years, mixing the prosaic with the momentous. Health concerns, dreams, political initiatives spill out together, to provide the fullest picture yet of Mandela. Show Less
Awards
Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2011)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Biography and Memoir — 2010)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2010
ISBN
9780374128951
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User reviews
LibraryThing member young42134
Nelson Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on 18 July 1918. He is widely considered to be one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age, he had now provided an unprecedented insight into his remarkable life.An intimate journey from his life as a politician, and a galvanizing role
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in the world stage, he fought in the front linees of freedom and justice. Show Less
LibraryThing member bohemianshell
Could not finish this one ...
LibraryThing member bdtrump
After finishing this book, I feel like I didn't really learn much about Mandela the person. The organization was also a little spotty, and the publishers made it seem like a longer read than it really is by putting images of Mandela's letters after each section (which you don't really have much of
2/5 for interesting source material direct from Mandela, but marks off for assuming your reader already knows quite a bit about who Mandela really was.
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a need to read, seeing as you've just read it). 2/5 for interesting source material direct from Mandela, but marks off for assuming your reader already knows quite a bit about who Mandela really was.
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LibraryThing member MHanover10
Very enjoyable.
LibraryThing member jgoodwll
Interesting to anybody with an interest in South Africa, but very badly arranged. Collection of brief excerpts, some as short as a single sentence. The book is divided thematically, but even within each theme the order is not always chronological.