一起了解美国总统奥巴马的过去

　　Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, offers a detailed account of Barack Obama's historic ascent. As a piece of 'biographical journalism', the book succeeds ably enough and offers familiar commentary on Obama's cosmopolitan childhood with strains of isolation and abandonment straight out of David Copperfield-rootless, fatherless, with a loving but na?ve and absent mother, he suffered racial taunts and humiliations at the hands of his schoolmates.

　　《纽约客》杂志编辑雷姆尼克带来了一部详细讲述贝拉克·奥巴马崛起历史的著作。本书是一部成功的“传记新闻”作品，我们在书中看到，童年时期的奥巴马到过世界上许多地方，居无定所，承受着孤独，被抛弃，就像是大卫·科波菲尔，四处流浪。他没有父亲，母亲虽然很疼爱他，但却不够成熟，且不在他身边。他还受到种族歧视，被同学侮辱。

　　Accused of not being black enough, he could show that he has more direct ties to Africa than most African-Americans have. Suspected of not being American enough, he appealed to his mother's Midwest origins and accent. Touring conservative little towns in southern Illinois, he could speak the language of the Kansan grandparents who raised him. He is a bit of a chameleon or shape-shifter, but he does not come across as insincere - that is the importance of his famous 'cool'. He does not have the hot eagerness of the con man. Though his own background is out of the ordinary, he has the skill to submerge it in other people's narratives, even those that seem distant from his own.

　　有人指责奥巴马不够黑，他就向他们证明，自己同非洲的直接联系比大多数非洲裔美国人都要多。有人怀疑他不是纯正的美国人，他就指出母亲是美国中西部人，说话带着中西部口音。在伊利诺伊州南部的保守小镇时，他可以使用的语言，就像抚养他的堪萨斯祖父母一样。他变化多端，却没有显得不真诚，这就是他成名“酷”的重要之处。他不像骗子一样那么急不可待。虽然其个人背景不寻常，但他能够将其融入到他人的故事中，即使是跟他相差十万八千里的人。