Sinopsis

Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951, was given unprecedented access to his subject, including extensive conversations with him, and inspection of all his letters through twenty seven years in prison, his original unpublished jail autobiography and the official prison records. He has unearthed for the first time British and American diplomatic and intelligence reports on his political influence; and he has been able to interview hundreds of colleagues, friends and family, including Mandela's three wives, to provide candid insights into his domestic life. He thus provides a quite new picture of Mandela's private and public life, and the tragic tension between them. 'This will be the last word on Mandela for years to come; it also becomes the central text in all future discussion of the momentous and paceful transfer of power from white to black in South Africa...it will be hard to improve upon this crowning conclusion to Sampson's long career as a loving and expert chronicler of South Africa'. -J.D.F Jones, Evening Standard. 'Measured, detailed without a moment of tedium, incisive in its perceptions and, at times, profoundly moving'. -Ronald Segal, Observer-.