From one of South Africa’s foremost nonfiction writers, this is a deeply researched, shattering new account of Nelson Mandela’s relationship with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Jonny Steinberg reveals the fractures and stubborn bonds at the heart of a volatile and groundbreaking union, a historical chronicle played out on the world stage.
Steinberg avoids salacious accounts, instead providing a deeply researched, sensitive, balanced, and fascinating account of the intertwined life trajectories of two people who had an outsized impact on their country and beyond.
A major source for the book lay in 15,000 pages of material recorded by prison officials monitoring visitors to Mandela in prison, even more so by Steinberg’s ability to use sources that allow verbatim re-telling of history. All this material was later donated to the University of the Free State.
“Another aspect of Winnie’s conduct would echo into the future. She was discovering early something that she and Nelson learned well, along with many others who have exercised power: that even blatant lying might pay off, for time and circumstance have a formidable capacity to remake what passes for truth.”
This review (coupled with a few descriptors from other Goodreads members) is intended to persuade the reader to what’s most important: the timeline of all that transpired during the political history of the apartheid era.
Shaun Bona
Bulletin 76
April 2025