Recommendations from our site
“Steinberg writes a portrait of the Mandela marriage as a window to a country struggling to come to terms with itself. Both Nelson and Winnie Mandela were wounded souls, deeply scarred by apartheid, by the time they met at a bus stop in the Black township of Soweto. Social worker Winnie was just 20 years old, and Nelson was nearly two decades her senior, married, a father of small children, and was on trial for treason when they married 15 months later. During his nearly three decades of imprisonment, Winnie was allowed to visit only a few times, and she became more militant and prone to violence as Nelson became more conciliatory. Steinberg is empathic in his depictions of Winnie and Nelson Mandela, and it is painful to read about this deeply wounded couple, battling both the state and one each other.” Read more...
The Best Biographies of 2024: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist
Elizabeth Taylor, Biographer
“Winnie and Nelson are heroic figures, but there’s a lot which is not at all heroic about them. It’s a ‘portrait of a marriage’, a very loaded phrase, because it’s warts and all. It’s warts which many historians had not talked or not known about, and previous biographers had left out (which just illustrates how biography is such a treacherous thing: it can be utterly misleading by omission). At the crudest level, we hear about the love affairs of both parties, the way in which they emotionally tried to cope against the crushing, evil machine that they were fighting. It’s both a history of South Africa with a freshness and a chilling detail that I hadn’t appreciated, but also makes one feel tremendously sorry for the two principal characters, in a Greek tragedy sort of way. Sometimes you’re just really cross with them. How could they end up doing such self-destructive things? In other words, the book brings the reader very close to two fascinating people who changed the world.” Read more...
The Best History Books of 2024: The Wolfson History Prize
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Theologians & Historians of Religion
“The author achieves incredible access to the inner workings of their relationship, thanks in part to the detailed transcripts prison guards took during Winnie’s visits to Nelson while he was imprisoned. That they exist at all offers some insight into the inhumanity of apartheid; the incredible cruelty suffered by Winnie and Nelson Mandela during their lives, drawn together in this impressive biography, offers yet more evidence.” Read more...
Award-Winning Biographies of 2024
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
