Mandela: The Authorised Portrait is an unusual volume. It is the size of a "coffee table book" but it transcends that genre to become something much greater. There are over 250 photographs, and it thus will meet the expectations of the lounge browser.
It begins with three tributes: by former President of the United States, Bill Clinton; by Kofi Annan when he was Secretary-General of the United Nations; and The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town. Here there is a marvellous full-page picture of Tutu and Mandela embracing. There are recent pictures of Mandela and of him with various dignitaries in the concluding sections.
What first catches the eye of the reader is the extraordinary photographs in this book, many appearing in print for the first time. The famous sculpture of Mandela on the South Bank of the Thames in London was made from old photographs as it was claimed that none were available for the period when he was imprisoned. In this volume there are numerous pictures related to the 27 years of incarceration, but only four of Nelson Mandela. Most of the pictures in this part of the book are of letters exchanged from behind bars.
Mandela: The Authorised Portrait is also a history of South Africa between 1918 and today. Amazingly, it is not an academic history, as there are relatively few footnotes (only 77) and very few references books in the bibliography (just the key ones on and by Mandela and others). This volume is more of a living history in that it focuses on new material obtained from recent interviews organised by the team that worked on the book. There are about sixty people acknowledged as "contributor biographies". The downside of this approach is that those who knew and worked with Nelson Mandela in the struggle but who are now dead may be minimised or forgotten. For example, from Mary Benson's biography Nelson Mandela-The Man and the Movement, (1994), there is one quote (on his failure as a father) and she appears only because Dennis Healey remembered that it was Mary Benson who had introduced him to Nelson Mandela (no date, no place). Below that appears a picture of Mary and Nelson together in London.
There are practically no references to Botswana in the book. There are a couple on Mandela's secret trip to Lobatse, his first trip out of South Africa. "In Bechuanaland he watched a lioness saunter out of the bush and felt that this was the Africa of myth and legend" (page 105).
Later there is a one-sentence reference to the attacks against the ANC in "Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana" (page 214). There is nothing on Mandela's first visit to Botswana after being released from prison. Ironically, his daughter, Makaziwe, by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, had arrived at Seretse Khama Airport just before Mandela's plane. She asked me, at the Gaborone Sun, why it had taken so long and been so difficult to get into town.
I said, why didn't you wait and travel with your father in his motorcade as all traffic was stopped to allow Mandela through in a few minutes? She laughed and said she didn't even know he was here.
Oddly, the book has no table of contents. This is because it is divided into four logical parts: Part One-The Call of Freedom, 1918-1964 (pages 11 to 131); Part Two-Out of the Darkness, 1964-1990 (pages 133 to 227); Part Three-Free at Last, 1990-present (pages 229 to 291); Part Four-Perspectives (pages 292 to 333) The fourth part concludes with eight pages recording a fascinating conversation on the August 13, 2005 between Mac Maharaj, Tim Couzens and Nelson Mandela. This is followed by eleven pages of listings, credits, notes and an index and source of photographs (but no listing of pictures). An odd feature is that the book is divided between white, brown and black pages, but only the white pages are numbered.
This book is also an example of the xtent to which today printing and publishing is "globalised". It was printed in China by Midas (no city mentioned). It is copyright by Nelson R. Mandela. Wild Dog Press in association with PQ Blackwell Limited of Auckland, New Zealand publishes it in Highlands North, South Africa. PQ Blackwell then lists ten people who worked on producing the book. The "editorial contributors" include eight people.
I have listed Mike Nicol first as he is the "Author of the narrative biography". He was the author of a book on Drum Magazine, A Good-Looking Corpse (1991) and four novels. He has worked as a journalist and creative writer in South Africa, Britain and Germany. The two "Editorial Consultants" are Mac Maharaj and Ahmed Kathrada, both of whom are members of the board of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Both were active politicians and imprisoned.
Kathrada spent 18 years on Robben Island. After independence in 1994 Maharaj was Minister of Transport and Kathrada served in the Office of the President.Three people worked as special interviewers, two in South Africa and one in the UK and abroad. Ros Coward, who wrote Diana-The Portrait, was the international interviewer, while Professor Tim Couzens and Amina Frense conducted the interviews in South Africa.
Couzens, who is an honorary professor at Wits, is known for his book on Lesotho, Murder at Morija (2003), while Frense is a journalist who produced the documentary Mandela, Son of Africa, (1997).
Together they did over sixty interviews with people like Muhammad Ali, George Bizos (who was recently in Botswana to launch DITSHWANELO's new book on capital punishment), Bono, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Thabo Mbeki, Richard Branson, Sydney Poitier and Helen Suzman.
Gail Behrmann, an expert in archive research, who has been involved in seven previous projects on Nelson Mandela, did the picture research but this is her first book, as the others were movies. This is a volume that many will want to have and treasure.
sheridangriswold@yahoo.com
