Vusi Mavimbela is one of South Africa’s foremost political adventurers and wanderers. His memoir Time is Not the Measure provides penetrating pen portraits of many South African and African political actors and a galaxy of senior ANC exiles. He illuminates the personalities of many influential people in South Africa’s early democratic governments.

But the heart of Mavimbela’s narrative lies in his unique experience of working as a top administrator and counsellor in the offices of both Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. He describes the conflict between those two flawed principals and captures the drama of their struggle and its destructive fallout for the new South African state.

Mavimbela offers a potent warning: loyalty and long service to a political party is no guarantee of wise and effective leadership.

"This is the most unusual history of Africa... it compares three religious systems: Christianity, Islam and indigenous African religions, in their influence on the history of the continent. Mavimbela seeks to demonstrate that all these religions are deeply rooted in the customs, practices and beliefs of the respective societies and that none are superior in their ability to explain the natural phenomena encountered by their adherents... this book is an extended expose of how a conquering power used either Christianity or Islam to establish subjugation over African people... The author hopes that by revisiting the painful detail of that history and it's implications, African people might still locate the bearings that might lead them back to their self-worth." - Prof Ben Turok

In his latest book, The Africa in Brazil, Mavimbela explores and deals with relations between Africa and Brazil. He intelligently connects global history with dialogues of the present time. With his skill of expression, poetic treatment of words, and mathematical power of synthesis, he navigates the waters of the Atlantic to remind us of the encounters and ruptures that continue to define indelible relations between Brazil and Africa of today. He also uses the positives in the leadership of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) to illuminate paths that could be followed in reconnecting and integrating the historical, political, cultural and economic synergies between Brazil and the continent of Africa.

The author makes instructive references to relations between South Africa and Brazil to underline historical, colonial and socio-economic vestiges (both parallels and similarities) that continue to define the two countries. He argues that the painful scars left by what he calls ‘Colonialism of a Special Type’, a common and historical feature in the two countries, continue to characterise much of the two societies.

This book is a breathtaking read. Mavimbela’s description of Brazilian Africanness, his treatment of places he visited in the country, the subjects, environments, rhythms, foods, deities and settings, make up a script for a film, with no loose ends.

This is a necessary and timely book for Brazil, Africa and the African Diaspora – it is something that has been missing in the decolonial and South-South literature.