Winnie and Nelson
Portrait of a Marriage
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • AN LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST • A WASHINGTON POST AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A deeply researched, shattering new account of Nelson Mandela’s relationship with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela that “does justice both to the couple’s political heroism and to the betrayals and the secrets that hounded their union” (The New Yorker).
Drawing on never-before-seen material, Steinberg—one of South Africa’s foremost nonfiction writers—reveals the fractures and stubborn bonds at the heart of a volatile and groundbreaking union, a very modern political marriage that played out on the world stage.
“Powerful, intimate.” —The Washington Post
One of the most celebrated political leaders of a century, Nelson Mandela has been written about by many biographers and historians. But in one crucial area, his life remains largely untold: his marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. During his years in prison, Nelson grew ever more in love with an idealized version of his wife, courting her in his letters as if they were young lovers frozen in time. But Winnie, every bit his political equal, found herself increasingly estranged from her jailed husband’s politics. Behind his back, she was trying to orchestrate an armed seizure of power, a path he feared would lead to an endless civil war.
Jonny Steinberg tells the tale of this unique marriage—its longings, its obsessions, its deceits—making South African history a page-turning political biography. Winnie and Nelson is a modern epic in which trauma doesn’t affect just the couple at its center, but an entire nation. It is also a Shakespearean drama in which bonds of love and commitment mingle with timeless questions of revolution, such as whether to seek retribution or a negotiated peace. Steinberg reveals, with power and tender emotional insight, how far these forever-entwined leaders would go for each other and where they drew the line. For in the end, both knew theirs was not simply a marriage, but a contest to decide how apartheid should be fought.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Steinberg (A Man of Good Hope) vividly recreates the political and private lives of anti-apartheid activists Nelson and Winnie Mandela in this exceptional dual biography. African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela and social worker Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela met in Johannesburg in 1957. Already a target of the white ruling authorities, Nelson went underground in 1961; arrested and jailed the following year for inciting a strike, he eventually received a lifetime prison sentence. While cultivating an aura of suffering and martyrdom from his cell, Nelson evolved into an inspirational figurehead for a free South Africa. Meanwhile, Winnie raised their daughters, supported the family, and made a place for herself in the ANC. By the 1970s, the ANC became South Africa's preeminent anti-apartheid organization and the Mandelas internationally known as its leaders. Privately, their marriage cracked under the strain. Winnie began taking lovers when Nelson first went underground, which he knew and accepted, though he preferred the myth he wove of their relationship. Rumors also circulated about her drinking and violent behavior. Two years after Nelson's release in 1990, the couple divorced, costing Winnie the last of the power she held with the ANC. The tumultuous decades apart had turned them into "astonishingly scarred human beings," Steinberg writes. Readers will be mesmerized by the thrumming tension and profound emotional complexity of this intimate portrait of two global icons. It's a knockout. Illus.
