One of the most common types of nonfiction, and one that many people enjoy reading, is stories about people's lives. These stories fall into three general categories: autobiography, memoir, and biography.

　　最普遍的非小说类文学作品类型之一就是一些描述人们生活的故事，并且很多人喜欢阅读这类作品。这些故事大致分为三类：自传、回忆录和传记。

　　An autobiography is the story of a person's life written by himself or herself. Often it begins with the person's earliest recollections and ends in the present. Autobiography writers may not be entirely objective in the way they present themselves. However, they offer the reader a good look at the way they are and what makes them that way. People as diverse as Benjarmin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 1Other writers, such as James Joyce，have written thinly fictionalized accounts of their lives. These are not autobiographies，but they are very close to it.

　　自传是作者记录自己故事的文章。通常自传会以作者最早期的回忆开始并以对现在情况的总结作为结束。自传的作者也许不会完全客观地介绍自己。然而，他们给读者提供了一个途径来了解自己比较好的行事风格和为何成就这样的自己。就像本杰明·富兰克林和海伦·凯勒一样，各种各样的人们已经写了自传。其他的作者就像詹姆斯·乔伊斯一样仅仅写了关于自己生活的虚构小说。这些不是自传，但是它们和自传非常相近。

　　Memoirs, strictly speaking, are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 2Memoir writers typically use these events as backdrops for their lives. They describe them in detail and discuss their importance. Recently，though，the term memoir seems to be becoming interchangeab1e with autobiography. A memoir nowadays may or may not deal with the outside world.

　　严格意义上来讲，回忆录是既注重作者本身的生活经历，也注重其所处的时代所发生的事件的自传性的描述。回忆录作者通常把这些事件作为他们生活的背景。他们详细地描述这些事件并论述这些事件的重要性。虽然近些年，回忆录这个词似乎开始变得可以和自传互换，但是目前回忆录也许还没有因外界评论而有所改变。

　　Biographies are factual accounts of someone else's life. In many senses，these may be the hardest of the three types to write. Autobiography writers know the events they write about because they lived them. But biography writers have to gather information from as many different sources as possible. Then they have to decide which facts to include. Their goal is to present a balanced picture of a person，not one that is overly positive or too critical. A fair well-presented biography may take years to research and write.

　　传记事实上是记录(作者以外)其他人的生活。在很多方面，传记也许是这三种非小说类文学作品中最难写的了。自传作者知悉他们所写的事件因为他们就生活在其中。但是传记作者不得不尽量从很多不同的渠道来收集信息。然后他们不得不决定包含哪种事实。他们的目标是用比较全面的图片来介绍一个人物，并不是过于积极也不是过于批判。一个公正并详尽的传记也许要花费许多年来研究并进行书写。

　　词汇：

　　backdrop /'bæk,drɔp/ n. 背景 interchangeable /intə 'tʃendʒəbl/ adj. 可转换的

　　注释：

　　1. People as diverse as Benjamin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 就像本杰明•富兰克林和海伦•凯勒一样，各种各样的人们已经写了自传。

　　2. Memoirs，strictly speaking，are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 严格意义上来讲，回忆录是既注重作者本身的生活经历，也注重其所处的时代所发生的事件的自传性的描述。