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Conversatii Cu Mine Insumi (2010)

by Nelson Mandela(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Victoria Books

review 1: I began reading this several days after Mandela's funeral so I could get a better understanding of the man and what he believed. This is not a narrative, but rather bits and pieces from letters, unpublished manuscripts and calendar entries, plus conversations he had with people involved in writing his biography. In most cases, they are fact-checking or looking for more details about specific events, including his wife, Winnie's, horrific statements in support of "necklacing". I look forward to reading more about Mandela, because this book left me wanting more: more context, more background and perhaps an easier to understand format.
review 2: We all knew Nelson Mandela had been locked up for years, but I didn't know the extent of the persecution of the prisone... morers. Rules made up along the way just to punish them. The buckets they used as toilets. Ignoring his requests to attend the funeral of his mother and later his 24 year old son. Total isolation from the rest of the world, especially his children. Often Winnie was also jailed and the children lived as orphans.I'd heard about the correspondence being censored on my visit to Robben Island in 2011, but Mandela's mail was especially censored. Most of his letters were never mailed at all, isolating him further from his family and the outside world. Some of the conversations in the book went deep and personal even discussing sexuality or the lack thereof. The effect of being separated from his wife for so many years and the possibility of his wife having relationships with others. Mandela said her loyalty to him was sufficient, the rest he simply put out of his mind.Mandela had lots of health issues, that I hadn't heard about, TB, Pleural effusion, surgery for a hole in his retina, kidney problems, and viral meningitis. It's a wonder he survived to such an advanced age. Many very emotional speeches are included like the speech from the dock in the 1964 Rivonia trial with the famous quote: "But if needs be, it (a democratic and free society) is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."A letter to Winnie giving her advice on life in a prison cell. " Incidentally, you may find that the cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to search realistically and regularly the process of your own mind and feelings."Mandela insisted on his privacy, which made the last line in a letter to Graca Machel so poignant: "I think of you." It made my heart melt.In the end he wanted us to know this: "One issue that deeply worried me in prison was the false image that I unwittingly projected to the outside world; of being regarded as a saint. I never was one, even on the basis of an earthly definition of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying." less

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