Reading about other people’s lives often gives us a fresh perspective on life and changes our attitude towards it. In this blog we shall look at three such memoirs/autobiographies that are entertaining, informative and very enriching.
A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mendela
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
- - Nelson Mandela in A Long Walk to Freedom
This autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela was published in 1995. This work profiles his early life, coming of age, education and the 27 years he spent in prison. Mandela was once thought of as a terrorist but today he is remembered as an uncontroversial, righteous President of South Africa. In fact, his contribution had also bagged him the Nobel Peace Prize. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension, and his belief that the struggle continues against apartheid in South Africa.
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
― Nelson Mandela
Within the first parts of the autobiography, Mandela interestingly talks about what it was to be connected to the royal Thembu dynasty. As a child he was called Rolihlahla, which is loosely translated as "pulling the branch of a tree" or in other words a troublemaker.
Later in the text, Mandela describes his education at a Thembu college and his years at the rather strict Healdtown school, where students were rigorously put in routines. Mandela, was convicted for inciting people to strike and leaving the country without a passport and sabotage. Mandela describes prison time on Robben Island and Pollsmoor Prison in great detail. His 28-year tenure in prison was marked by the cruelty of Afrikaner guards, backbreaking labor, and sleeping in minuscule cells which were nearly uninhabitable.
The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
“I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”
- Anne Frank in The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl is a collections kept by Jewish teenager Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in a concentration camp. The diary was retrieved and handed over to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the only known survivor of the family. The diary has now been published in more than 60 different languages.
Anne Frank began to keep a diary on June 14th 1942, two days after she turned 13 and twenty two days before going into hiding with her mother Edith Frank, father Otto Frank, sister Margot Frank and three other people in the sealed-off upper rooms of the annex of her father's office building in Amsterdam. With the assistance of a group of Otto Frank's trusted colleagues, the families remained hidden for two years and one month, until their betrayal in August 1944, which resulted in their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank survived the war.
The book begins with fun things like crushes, birthday parties but takes on a slightly grimmer note with Anne wondering if she will ever go to school, and will she ever be able to breathe free. The book is also lot of fun with descriptions of her tiffs with mom and letters to her dad. One of her friend’s had reportedly seen Anne before she died and she looked like a starving, skinny girl with the eye sockets buried deep.
Mein Kampf : Adolf Hitler
Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.
- Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf (English: My Struggle or My Battle) is a book by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography and his political ideology. Hitler began the dictation of the book while in prison for what he regarded as "political crimes". In Mein Kampf, Hitler uses "the Jewish peril" as the main thesis, which he thinks of alleged Jewish conspiracy to gain world leadership. He speaks of not having met a Jew until he reached Vienna, and that at first he was liberal and tolerant. Mein Kampf has also been studied as a work on political theory. Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world's twin evils: Communism and Judaism. In the book Hitler openly states that the future of Germany "has to lie in the acquisition of land in the East at the expense of Russia."
Have you read any other superb memoir/autobiography? Please share.
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