Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

by: Nelson Mandela

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the first democratically elected president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela began his autobiography during the course of his 27 years in prison. This audio offers a biography of Mandela's life from his birth in 1918 to his inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994. A large part of the audio is a description of his 27 years in prison, an account that could stand alone as a prison narrative. Long Walk to Freedom also explores Mandela's strong spirit that refused to be broken under very difficult circumstances. It ends with a call for everyone to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. -- Rick Sheridan (Sacramento, CA)

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Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography

by: Nelson Mandela

This handsome 91/4" x 103/8" book abridges South African leader Mandela's acclaimed 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, and adds some 200 photographs. It also contains a substantial amount of text, making it a suitable introduction for those without the time to read the longer work. The photos, from a variety of archives and journalistic sources, ably illustrate Mandela and, even more so, the South Africa around him. While photos of protests and trials predominate, there are images of the rural areas of Mandela's youth, of the smoky segregated townships of his lawyer days in Johannesburg, and of Mandela's family and African National Congress comrades. The photos taken after Mandela's release from prison and South Africa's democratic election capture historic scenes.

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A Prisoner in the Garden

by: The Nelson Mandela Foundation

One of Nelson Mandela's goals for his eponymous Centre of Memory and Commemoration is "to locate and document-and facilitate public access to-the many archives that contain traces of my life and those who lived it with me." Archives is a dusty word, but Mandela's Prison Archive, selections of which are reproduced in this beautiful volume, is a vibrant, moving affair. Used in its broadest sense here, the word includes "sites, landscapes, material objects, performances, photographs, artworks, stories and the memories of individuals." The all-embracing scope means that this book records not only official documents and personal papers but also the stories of people "who have simply felt their lives touched by him." With brevity and clarity, the foundation writers sketch Mandela's prison experience, his personal life and his political and philosophical thought. The testy challenge of balancing intimate knowledge against the rights of relatives and friends is met with candor ("voyeurism," one of the writers observes, "is the eternal temptation of archivists"). With this handsome illustrated book, the center advances another of Mandela's goals: "to unravel the many silences imposed by our apartheid and colonial pasts, to find space for the memories suppressed by power."

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Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela (New York Times)

by: Bill Keller

This fascinating biography looks at the life of Nelson Mandela, placing his awe-inspiring accomplishments in historical context for a new generation to admire. On a February day in 1994, Mandela visited Robben Island, a desolate rock where he had been held during his twenty-seven years as a prisoner. Days later, he triumphed in an election that rescued South Africa from the climate of oppression that had held sway for so long. By New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, this inspiring biography looks at the events that led Mandela from his tribal homeland to the center of the struggle for racial equality in South Africa. From early acts of protest to the leadership of an apartheid-free nation, this is an honest portrayal of a modern political and social icon.

Release Date: 01/15/2008

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Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa

by: Padraig O'Malley

In this groundbreaking biography of a central figure in the fight to end South African apartheid, O'Malley draws on every aspect of Maharaj's life and the society in which he lived in order to understand South Africa's changing racial and political context over the past 100 years. Based on extensive interviews with Maharaj, this is an often harrowing read, recounting his torture as a political prisoner and the many difficulties and setbacks suffered by underground activists within and outside of South Africa. Maharaj-a first-person narrator in most of the book-comes across as an imperfect and deeply human hero, animated by his stubborn streak to devote his entire life to the cause.

A lengthy foreword by Nelson Mandela touches on his relationship with Maharaj, his decision to make him minister of transport in the first free South African government, and the time they shared imprisoned on Robben Island.

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Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales

Mandela states in the foreword, "It is my wish that the voice of the storyteller will never die in Africa-.," and he has chosen 32 traditional tales for this handsome oversized volume. While nearly half the selections have their origins in South Africa, the rest represent some of the continent's most cherished tales and come from Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and other sub-Saharan countries as well as a single selection from Morocco.

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Mandela: The Authorized Portrait

by: PQ Publishers Ltd., Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton

With beautifully reproduced photographs on every double-page spread, this huge, very handsome biography is both for those who know Mandela only as a distant icon and for those familiar with his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (1994), and with the history of South Africa's struggle for democracy. More than 60 world figures (including Clinton, Annan, and Bono) and antiapartheid activists (including Tutu and Kathrada) pay tribute and remember the great freedom fighter. They pair Mandela with Gandhi: in the words of Nadine Gordimer, "the two indisputably magnificent great people of the last millenium . . . unique in their incredible moral and humanistic stand." Most moving are the accounts by Mandela's fellow prisoners on Robben Island, the photos of them breaking stones in the limestone quarry, the brutal street confrontations between police and demonstrators.

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Nelson Mandela (DK Biography)

by: Lenny Hort, Laaren Brown

The chronologically arranged chapters cover major events in Mandela's live, like i.e. Acts of Defiance (Mandela). Numerous interesting photos and illustrations are included. Unfortunately, the book contains some errors, such as incomplete Web site addresses in the Works Cited sections and incorrect quotes; the reason given for Mandela's separation from his first wife is not the same as that given in his autobiography. Overal a good biography, as most titles on Mandela aren't any better than this one.

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The Cry of Winnie Mandela

by: Njabulo S. Ndebele

"The Cry of Winnie Mandela attains the height of imaginative power to pursue the inconsistencies of human emotion and behaviour that reveal something of the always unattainable truth."
Nadine Gordimer, South African Writer and Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1991

"Ndebele represents a rare breed of a writer: he combines political awareness with a sensitivity towards context, language and characterisation. The result is a gift offering to the present time%u2026"
Dr Ato Quayson, Director, African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge, UK

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Part of My Soul Went with Him

by: Winnie Mandela

This important, topical book is about Winnie and Nelson Mandela, leaders in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Both have been in and out of prison, and since 1964, Nelson Mandela, head of the banned African National Congress and the man who, many agree, would be Prime Minister were free elections held, has been serving a life sentence. In a series of interviews, interspersed with Mandela's censored letters, his wifebanished in the late '70s to a remote town in the Orange Free Statetells their story. Here are their marriage and early years together, their political work and her life since his final arrest and triala time of harassment, marked by banishment and most recently the destruction by arson of the family's home and the kidnapping of a grandchild. The woman who emerges in this lyrical, poignant, tragic commentary is proud and humorous, whose majestic sense of self enables her to walk into white-only stores, demandingand receivingservice. Perhaps most significant, Winnie Mandela illustrates on a personal level the hideousness of apartheid and shares her dream of a South Africa freed of racial enslavement. First serial to Ms. and Mother Jones.

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Winnie Mandela: A Life

by: Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob

Everyone has an opinion about Winnie Mandela, and usually a strong one. She has been adored, feared and hated more than any other woman in South African history. But few people know much about the life behind the headlines, myths and sound-bites. This biography is an in-depth and intimate look at Winnie Mandela's personal and political life, and takes the reader on a remarkable journey of understanding. The book traces her development from talented and privileged child to dedicated social worker, caring wife and mother, and fiery political activist. It examines her vigorous campaign to keep the name of her jailed husband alive, and explores her own harassment, imprisonment and isolation at the hands of the security police. Finally, the book investigates the events that have made Winnie Mandela such a controversial figure: the allegations of kidnapping and murder, her divorce from Mandela, and the current fraud charges. Winnie Mandela's journey to this point is traced with understanding and honesty, in this fascinating and balanced biography of a most enigmatic woman.

Release Date: 06/30/2005

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