Nelson Mandela was one of the most revered figures of our time. He committed himself to a compelling political cause, suffered a long prison sentence, and led his violent and divided country to a peaceful democratic transition. His legacy, however, is not uncontested: his decision to embark on an armed struggle in the 1960s, his solitary talks with apartheid officials in the 1980s, and the economic policies adopted during his presidency still spark intense debate, even after his death. The essays in this Companion, written by experts in history, anthropology, jurisprudence, cinema, literature, and visual studies, address these and other issues. They examine how Mandela became an icon during his lifetime and consider the meanings and uses of his internationally recognizable image. Their overarching concerns include Mandela's relation to 'tradition' and 'modernity', the impact of his most famous public performances, the oscillation between Africanist and non-racial positions in South Africa, and the politics of gender and national sentiment. The volume concludes with a meditation on Mandela's legacy in the twenty-first century and a detailed guide to further reading.

The late eighties was a highly politicised environment. Willem Laubscher was healing some of the world’s best-known political prisoners, amongst them Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki. When Nelson Mandela was scheduled for a similar operation, all hell broke loose.

The National Party was quietly plotting to smuggle Mandela out of the country, possibly hoping that he would escape, while the ANC was scoring points by casting doubt on the medical services that white doctors like Laubscher was willing to provide to the political prisoners. A relatively simple medical operation turned into an international diplomatic crisis. Meanwhile, in most ironic of twists, the security police was taking desperate measures to ensure Mandela’s safety – the country could simply not afford an assassination attempt.

Willem Laubscher was the medical practitioner in the eye of this storm; Nelson Mandela was the calm strategist who had held out against pressure from both the jittery NP government and the increasingly boisterous ANC, with Winnie Mandela already larger than life, stoking the media and exploiting every available loophole to embarrass the government.

This is the story of a few weeks of diplomatic chaos, and a security operation that completely overshadowed the medical procedure Mandela was scheduled for. Read all about it now in this 64-page memoir of that provocative time, Operation Mandela.

A brutally honest expose, After Mandela provides a sobering portrait of a country caught between a democratic future and a political meltdown.

Recent works have focused primarily on Nelson Mandela's transcendent story. But Douglas Foster, a leading South Africa authority with early, unprecedented access to President Zuma and to the next generation in the Mandela family, traces the nation's entire post-apartheid arc, from its celebrated beginnings under "Madiba" to Thabo Mbeki's tumultuous rule to the ferocious battle between Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.

Foster tells this story, not only from the point of view of the emerging black elite, but also drawing on hundreds of rare interviews over a six-year period, from the perspectives of ordinary citizens, including an HIV-infected teenager living outside Johannesburg and a homeless orphan in Cape Town.

This is the long-awaited, revisionist account of a country whose recent history has been not just neglected but largely ignored by the West.

Once, chef Brett Ladds was given a cigar by Fidel Castro, he talked weightlifting with Swazi king Mswati III and his cooking made Quincy Jones sing. For many years he also served Nelson Mandela many cups of rooibos tea and made him his favourite meals.

Ladds was the executive chef of the SA government and manager of the presidential guesthouse at Bryntirion Estate in Pretoria from 1994-1999 where he served both Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. It was a naive and star-struck 21-year-old Ladds who started working at the guesthouse in the months before the first democratic election. During this time he was always in the background when struggle stalwarts like Steve Tshwete, Joe Modise and Dullah Omar met Mandela to discuss the future of the country.

This heart-warming book tells of a young man’s coming of age at a turning point in our history. His stories about meeting kings and queens, presidents, rock stars and even the pope are laced with his unique, self-deprecating sense of humour. Of Queen Elizabeth he says it felt like speaking to his gran. “I asked myself, how does all that power fit into this lovely, caring lady?” Of Robert Mugabe: “He never moaned about a thing.”

Then there are the Russian diplomats and their drinking habits and the Saudi-Arabian sheik who had 8 television sets installed in his room and bought 20 blankets at R5000 each for his stay.

It’s a book to make you laugh and cry. And Madiba’s favourite champagne? Pêche Royale . . .

Drawing on Nelson Mandela's own unfinished memoir, Dare Not Linger is the remarkable story of his presidency told in his own words and those of distinguished South African writer Mandla Langa.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa's citizens, black and white, were equal before the law.

Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela's presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela's unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela's presidency, a country in flux and the creation of a new democracy. It tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcome to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.

Tony Leon has written a book of unique insight into an unexplored aspect of the presidency and leadership of Nelson Mandela. Opposite Mandela relates the untold stories of how South Africa's first democratic president related to his political opponents.

Leon served as leader of the Democratic Party during Mandela's presidency. Although they clashed, sometimes fiercely, on great issues of the day, Leon enjoyed an unusually warm relationship with Mandela and had direct access to the president's office. In this first-hand account, he relates some of the more consequential moments of those momentous times in South Africa's history-in-the-making through the lens of the opposition. Although this is a personal account, it also explores some of the major themes, from reconciliation to corruption, which not only marked that period but also laid the basis for the current challenges which confront South Africa today, nearly two decades after Mandela assumed the country’s highest office, the very moment when Leon's political leadership began.

Insightful, and simultaneously serious and amusing, it lifts the veil on many unknown or unexplained benchmarks from that era: the personal animosity between Mandela and FW De Klerk, the decision of the Democratic Party to reject Mandela's offer of a seat in his cabinet and whether the extraordinary outreach of Mandela to the minorities was the shrewd calculation of a latter-day Machiavelli or the genuine impulses of a secular political saint. This highly readable and first-hand account considers in a balanced manner both the golden moments and the blind spots of one of the most consequential presidencies and leaders of the modern democratic age.

Nelson Mandela, who emerged from twenty-six years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world's most admired leader, a man whose life has been led with exemplary courage and inspired conviction.

Now Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951 and has been a close observer of South Africa's political life for the last fifty years, has produced the first authorized biography, the most informed and comprehensive portrait to date of a man whose dazzling image has been difficult to penetrate. With unprecedented access to Mandela's private papers (including his prison memoir, long thought to have been lost), meticulous research, and hundreds of interviews--from Mandela himself to prison warders on Robben Island, from Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo to Winnie Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, and many others intimately connected to Mandela's story--Sampson has composed an enlightening and necessary story of the man behind the myth.

The question was: would he hang? In 1963, when South Africa's apartheid government charged Nelson Mandela with planning its overthrow, most observers feared that he would be sentenced to death. But the support he and his fellow activists in the African National Congress received during his trial not only saved his life, but also enabled him to save his country. In Saving Nelson Mandela, South African law expert Kenneth S. Broun recreates the trial-called the "Rivonia" Trial after the Johannesburg suburb where police seized Mandela. Based upon interviews with many of the case's primary figures and portions of the trial transcript, Broun situates readers inside the courtroom at the imposing Palace of Justice in Pretoria. Here, the trial unfolds through a dramatic narrative that captures the courage of the accused and their defense team, as well as the personal prejudices that colored the entire trial. The Rivonia trial had no jury and only a superficial aura of due process, combined with heavy security that symbolized the apartheid government's system of repression. Broun shows how outstanding advocacy, combined with widespread public support, in fact backfired on apartheid leaders, who sealed their own fate. Despite his 27-year incarceration, Mandela's ultimate release helped move his country from the racial tyranny of apartheid toward democracy. As documented in this inspirational book, the Rivonia trial was a critical milestone that helped chart the end of Apartheid and the future of a new South Africa.

The book that inspired the major new motion picture "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom."
Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.
LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela tells the extraordinary story of his life--an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph.

This book lifts the veil on what it’s like to cross a chasm in South Africa - from newspaper editor opposing apartheid repression to adviser in the Presidency and government in democracy.

It is the personal story of Tony Heard, former Editor of the Cape Times, moving from journalist to spin-doctor, consultant, speechwriter and other official business.

His new career covers a decade in the Presidency as a special adviser (2000-2010), and a dozen years in 3 government ministries/departments. In all, he serves governance for 22 years (June 1994 to June 2016), most of the first quarter century of his country’s freedom.

Goeiemôre, mnr Mandela vertel die uitsonderlike verhaal van hoe Zelda la Grange se lewe, oortuigings en vooroordele omvergewerp word deur die grootste staatsman van ons tyd.

Dit volg die ongelooflike lewenspad van ’n verskrikte tikster in haar vroeë twintigs wat gekies word as Nelson Mandela se lojaalste steunpilaar en haar loopbaan daaraan wy om reisgenoot en versorger te word van die man wat sy ‘Khulu’ noem.

Hierdie boek wentel om liefde en tweede kanse. Dit sal jou lewe raak en jou laat glo elkeen van ons, ongeag wie ons is en wat ons gedoen het, het die mag om te verander.

I Remember Nelson Mandela is a collection of remembrances from those who worked with, for and beside Mandela. More than one hundred individuals, from household staff to bodyguards and presidential advisors, have offered their memories, which provide warm, poignant and often humorous insights into what it was like behind the scenes with one of the most revered and beloved political figures the world has seen.

‘Nothing is more important than to be loved by your colleagues.’ – Nelson Mandela, 5 August 2008, addressing the staff of the Nelson Mandela Foundation at a private celebration for his 90th birthday

The collection is the dream-child of Mrs Graça Machel who, some months after Nelson Mandela’s passing on 5 December 2013, met with former members of his staff to thank them for their service. Listening to their stories inspired the creation of this, the perfect gift book, providing readers with a glimpse into the man behind the title.

16 years went into the making of the feature film Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, a biopic based on Mandela's bestselling autobiography. Danny Schechter, who has spent 40 years getting to know Mandela, was asked to make a non-fiction documentary about the biopic and this book is his companion to the feature, the documentary, and Mandela's life itself.

In Schechter's words:
"What do we see when we see Nelson Mandela? Many of those who adore him projected on to him a god-like persona as political superman. Others projected on to him the qualities they wanted or feared. For many years, his government silenced him as a faceless terrorist and communist. Others saw him as a savior who single-handedly won freedom for South Africa. Many of us only saw the political mission, not the man behind it, and, when we did, what man was that? Was it the victim turned victor, prisoner turned President, the lone hero and political magician or the wise leader of a liberation movement? He was courted by kings and queens, the biggest names in show business and world leaders--who appealed to his often unseen vanity--but despite some compromises and co-optation, he largely stayed true to the values that shaped and guided him becoming, as he aged, even more reflective and self-aware."