Synopsis
This authorized biography of South Africa's freedom fighter and first president after apartheid provides a comprehensive history of modern South Africa through the life of the figure who was central to its anti-apartheid movement. Biographer Sampson tells of Mandela's role as leader of the African National Congress; the long struggle for his release from Robben Island; the cost in his relations with his family; his efforts to establish a new government with a new constitution; and his brave stance on forgiveness and peacemaking. A New York Times Notable Book for 1999.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1999-09-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 672 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 2.0 in | | Weight: | 41.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
The life of Nelson Mandela is one of the most extraordinary epics of the twentieth century. An almost-forgotten prisoner on Robben Island twenty years ago, apparently doomed to a helpless existence as a victim of apartheid, he not only survived but almost single-handedly saved South Africa from potential chaos, to become one of the most widely admired leaders in the world. Mandela's myth is dazzling; in this magnificent biography Anthony Sampson penetrates it to show us the man himself.
Sampson has known Mandela since 1951. He was given Mandela's complete cooperation, including access to twenty-seven years' worth of unpublished correspondence from prison and many other private documents even the original draft of Mandela's prison autobiography, long thought to be lost. He interviewed virtually every significant living figure associated with Mandela, from childhood schoolmates to Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie, to former president F. W. de Klerk. Mandela himself checked an annotated the manuscript, but Sampson was left free to make his own judgements about the man, which he has done with refreshing candor. The result is wonderfully revealing and objective.
MANDELA is filled with new insights and information. We see how prison, which he and his fellow inmates turned into a kind of unofficial university, gradually transformed Mandela from a headstrong activist into a reflective and consummately skilled statesman. We learn how British and American diplomats cold-shouldered him when support was desperately needed, and about the political infighting, sometimes vicious, that went on between anti-apartheid factions. Particularly fascinating is Samson's narrative of the incredible negotiations leading to Mandela's release from prison and the eventual collapse of the white regime, when his colleagues feared that he was selling out to the government.
At every turn, this book sheds fresh light on the moral dilemmas that Mandela was forced to face again and again in his personal and public lives. In the struggle for freedom for South African blacks, he paid a tragic price, becoming alienated from his wife and remote from his children. Yet he famously retained his humanity, and while Sampson does not conceal Mandela's failings his stubbornness, his fixed loyalties, his princely manners and detachment the man who emerges is authentically heroic.
Broadly based, painstakingly researched, elegantly written, MANDELA is a fitting complement to Mandela's celebrated autobiography. It will stand as an exemplar of the biographer's art at its most masterly and, even more, as a moving testament to the power of the human spirit in adversity.
Industry Reviews
"With a great deal of additional research he brings to it a deep personal understanding of the politics of South Africa. Until the confidential records of the government and of the ANC during Mandela's presidency are opened to study, Sampson's will remain the definitive biography."
Literary Review - Hilda Bernstein (06/19/1999)
"No doubt in time other biographers will be tempted to lend substance to the little girl's perception, to smash the icon. Anthony Sampson's work will endure as a corrective to any such endeavor, as a lasting monument to Mandela's imperishable greatness."
Carlin
"Far more than a deeply informed biography, it becomes a history of South Africa since 1960."
Kipnis
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