One of these causes, the International Defence & Aid Fund, paid the legal costs of Mandela and his fellow accused in the Treason and Rivonia trials, and just about every political trial of any consequence. The book virtually ignores their generous financing of nonviolent causes. Is this a mark of the ANC's ideological shift? But then the Swedes have a political system which would be in harmony with the aspirations of men like Mandela and the late Oliver Tambo.

Yet there can be no excuse for overlooking the contribution of Cuba, whose soldiers died in their thousands fighting the South African military in Angola, and who handed over their Isle of Youth to the education of southern African refugees. Or perhaps he was of the wrong gender, for Mandela admits that he could let his hair down with women and 'confess to weaknesses and fears I would never reveal to another man.' The occasional omissions and misconstructions would be the result of what Stengel has described as Mandela's mask. His 'ghost-writer,' Richard Stengel of Time magazine, spent many months with his subject, and has done a fine job. No one, certainly not a man in his mid-70s negotiating day and night for the freedom of his people, would have had the time to put a book together. When in prison, Mandela wrote down a lengthy account of his life, He had time on his hands and the past came back 'like a waking dream.' The manuscript was smuggled out, and forms the spine of this story. I find with the autobiography of the famous that the first two-thirds - Formative Years and The Struggle - are often more absorbing than the last, Time of Fame. Indeed, the book might be seen as a love letter to Winnie.īut first, a word of caution. Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom has humor and pathos, arrogance and humility, the occasional personal revelation, moments of terrible sadness and, running as a leitmotif through the narrative, the forgiving love for his errant wife. But now, from the top and the inside, comes a meaty yet graceful volume by the black man who incarnated the struggle.

OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID WAS MOSTLY PROVIDED BY LIBERAL AND FREEDOM-FIGHTING WHITES, THROUGH BIOGRAPHY, ACADEMIC STUDIES, AND THE MEDIA.Īs one of those responsible, far be it from me to complain.

Long walk to freedom book