Review by Choice Review
Drawing primarily from South Africa's National Archives, Venter has assembled a superb collection of Nelson Mandela's prison letters written between 1962 and 1990. Mandela's letters follow chronologically, beginning with his incarceration in Pretoria Local Prison and followed by Robben Island, Pollsmoor, and Victor Verster. Letter after letter attests to Mandela's strength of character and extraordinary resiliency. Oftentimes prison authorities heavily censored his letters or simply did not send them, yet Mandela persevered even in the most heartbreaking moments. In a 10-month period in 1968--69 Mandela lost his mother and firstborn son, and learned that security police apprehended and imprisoned his wife, Winnie. In a letter to Winnie in 1969, Mandela encouraged her to remain resolute and strong: "A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance … but by those who are in the arena." Throughout his 27 years in prison Mandela's respectful defiance toward apartheid authorities never wavered. Mandela sent his final prison letter to the commissioner of prisons on February 11, 1990, moments before walking to freedom through the prison gates. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --James O. Gump, University of San Diego
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, dozens of journalists and television camera crews from all over the world descended on South Africa and made their way to the dusty street outside his Soweto home. I was among them. We shared the same goal: to get Mandela to give us some insight into his 27 years in prison and to tell us his plans for the future. My turn finally came toward the end of that warm day, after he had sat for hours in suit and tie, always composed, despite the fact that he'd had virtually no experience being in front of a TV camera when he went to prison, in 1962. I began by trying to open a door none of the other journalists could, telling him how I identified with the struggle against apartheid, given my younger years in America's segregated South before the civil rights movement. Before I could finish my sentence, Mandela's eyes lit up brighter than I had seen them all afternoon, and for the first and only time that day, he provided a small glimpse into his prison life. "Oh," he said, "do you know Miss Maya Angelou?" I nodded, and his reserved demeanor briefly fell away. "We read all of her books when we were in prison!" he said. That was about all Mandela or any of the other political prisoners incarcerated with him on Robben Island gave up to me or to any other journalist for the longest time. When I next traveled to South Africa, for the "PBS NewsHour," in May 1994, just before Mandela was sworn in as president, I inquired about interviewing some of the former Robben Islanders. "You know, those old guys only talk about those years among themselves," one of their friends told me. But eventually Mandela did talk about those years, in graphic detail, in his monumental autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom" (1994), a book that his fellow prisoners Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada persuaded him to begin, with their assistance, in prison, and that didn't leave much to the imagination. Now, during the centenary of his birth, we have "The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela," containing 255 of his handwritten letters and displaying unedited his raw emotions, heartbreaking and inspiring, from the period of his imprisonment, first on Robben Island; then in Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison, outside Cape Town; and finally, in 1988, at Victor Verster Prison, near Paari, where he held the talks with government officials that ultimately led to his release. This book confronts readers with the most direct evidence yet of Mandela's intellectual evolution into one of the great moral heroes of our time. It was assembled over 10 years by Sahm Venter, a South African journalist and author, who obtained the letters from a variety of sources, among them a collection named for a policeman who, after Mandela's release, returned notebooks confiscated from his cell in 1971 into which he had carefully copied his letters before passing them on to warders to be mailed. Mandela knew that the warders screened his incoming and outgoing correspondence, often withholding both, sometimes for months, or censoring portions. Many of the letters portray Mandela the loving husband and attentive father to five children - his three older ones by his first wife, Evelyn, and his two with his second wife, Winnie. (Just 3 and not quite 2 when he went to prison, they were prohibited from visiting him until they were 16.) The letters make clear Mandela's efforts to stay connected to his extended family, who sometimes consulted him on tribal matters. (Venter provides footnotes translating his occasional phrases in isiXhosa and identifying people he mentions.) He refused to condone the apartheid regime's ploy of establishing separate homelands for black South Africans, in effect isolating them from white society, at one point declining a request for a visit from his nephew K. D. Matanzima, a Thembu chief who went along with the plan. Mandela scolded Matanzima in a letter for "using our relationship to involve me and my organization [the African National Congress] in Bantustan politics." Yet in the same letter, Mandela insists on his family bond, telling his nephew that he was "disturbed by recent press reports which indicate the existence of a tragic turmoil in family affairs." (In a footnote Venter speculates that Mandela was referring to Matanzima's conflict with another paramount chief, who fled the country after offending Matanzima's dignity.) Regardless of their political differences, Mandela continues, "touchiness and intemperate language is no model for my own approach to people and problems." The letter ends with the words "I miss you all." Others convey the legal training he had as a law student before his arrest (for inciting worker strikes, to which charges of sabotage were later added). In a long letter he wrote in 1979 to the commanding officer of Robben Island, and ultimately intended for the minister of prisons and police, he politely elaborated a list of grievances and demands, including requests that political prisoners "be released on remission, parole or probation," "be allowed to acquire radios and newspapers," to "study any course or subject with a recognized educational institution local or abroad" and to "train in some skill or trade." With words as his only ammunition, Mandela fought his case patiently, on lined paper, his eloquence inseparable from his rectitude. "I detest white supremacy and will fight it with every weapon in my hands," he wrote to a senior prison official in 1976, in another letter of grievance. "But even when the clash between you and me has taken the most extreme form, I should like us to fight over principles and ideas and without personal hatred, so that at the end of the battle, whatever the results might be, I can proudly shake hands with you because I feel I have fought an upright and worthy opponent who has observed the whole code of honor and decency. But when your subordinates continue to use foul methods then a sense of real bitterness and contempt becomes irresistible." Eventually Mandela acquired the textbooks he needed to study for his law degree, which he finally obtained in absentia from the University of South Africa a few months before leaving prison. He was 70 years old. Two of the volume's most heartbreaking letters are ones he wrote after the deaths of his mother and eldest son, whose funerals he was not permitted to attend. His mother's death "hit me hard," he wrote to his nephew Matanzima. "I at once felt lonely and empty." Mandela's letters to Winnie - who, when she was finally allowed to visit him, was denied any physical contact until after he arrived at Pollsmoor prison in the early 1980s - are tender, often addressing her as "My darling Mum" or by one of her clan names. In one, he calls her "the most wonderful friend I have in life." In another, he recalls "touching your hand or hugging you as you moved up & down the house, enjoying your delicious dishes, the unforgettable hrs in the bedroom, made life taste like honey." There is no indication that the relationship would end in divorce, as it did six years after he left prison. In August 1970, he wrote to Winnie, who was also in prison at the time, a letter of eerie prescience: "One day we may have on our side the genuine & firm support of an upright & straightforward man, holding high office, who will consider it improper to shirk his duty of protecting the rights & privileges of even his bitter opponents in the battle of ideas that is being fought in our country today; an official who will have a sufficient sense of justice & fairness to make available to us not only the rights & privileges that the law allows to us today, but who will also compensate us for those that were surreptitiously taken away. In spite of all that has happened I have, throughout the ebb & flow of the tides of fortune in the last 15 months, lived in hope & expectation. Sometimes I even have the belief that this feeling is part & parcel of my self. It seems to be woven into my being." 'One day we may have on our side the genuine & firm support of an upright & straightforward mem.' CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT is an author and prizewinning journalist who lived and worked in and out of South Africa for 17 years.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 31, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In 1962, when he was arrested, Nelson Mandela, who would become the first black and democratically elected president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was a 44-year-old husband, father of five young children, and prominent anti-apartheid activist. He was incarcerated for 27 years, primarily in the Robben Island Maximum Security Prison, where he labored in a quarry by day and studied at night for his law degree. A man of indomitable spirit and conviction, Mandela wrote hundreds of letters, 255 of which are gathered here to resounding effect. With editor Venter's succinct contextual information, Mandela's reasoned and diligent letters tell the inside story of a freedom fighter who refused to betray his principles and comrades, no matter how much anguish he endured in isolation from his loved ones, who also suffered terribly. Mandela's extensive correspondence to prison officials regarding prisoners' rights and his needs for everything from eyeglasses to school materials are as precise and formally argued as legal briefs, while loving letters to his family, including his wife, Winnie, who, at times, was also imprisoned, deliver reassurance, advice, and encouragement. A landmark historical source and a dramatic read, this collection of Mandela's letters illuminates with stunning immediacy the genius, sacrifice, discipline, courage, and commitment of a world-changing civil rights hero.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The value of this epistolary trove isn't limited to scholars of the decades-long struggle against apartheid, though Venter's diligent collection and annotation is certainly tailored for research purposes. Drawn from Mandela's letters to family, friends, comrades, admirers, and even his own jailers, this dense and vivid archive goes from his 1962 incarceration on the infamous Robben Island to his 1990 release from Victor Verster Prison, paving the way for his election in 1994 as South Africa's first black president. Throughout, his insistence on correct legal procedure and unflinching advocacy for his beliefs demonstrates the conviction that marked Mandela as a leading statesman, even while behind bars. More personal correspondence, such as those mourning the death of his oldest son in his absence, reveal the high price the South African government exacted from him. Always thoughtful, Mandela is particularly eloquent when engaging his oppressors directly, as in a 1971 letter (originally in Afrikaans) to the commander of Robben Island: "Only a person armed with love for his fellow human beings, and who cares about others, will succeed where force and power will be applied in vain." Anyone seeking to understand one of the guiding lights of the antiapartheid fight will find these letters a vital resource. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Compiled from various collections over ten years and edited by Venter (491 Days), this collection of 255 prison letters written by the late revolutionary and former president of South Africa provides a unique glimpse of Mandela during his 27-year incarceration, which he served at four different prisons. Context regarding the significance of these letters is provided throughout, including how prison authorities censored and regulated prisoner correspondence by controlling what words could be used and limiting the number of words written. Many of the letters found within this work never made it to the intended recipient owing to their being lost or thrown away, but Mandela made a point to record each letter, many word for word. Both intimate and diplomatic, these writings showcase Mandela's various roles as a husband, father, friend, and lawyer. Photographs, scans of letters, footnotes, and a glossary referencing individuals and events are found within the letters. VERDICT An important work for library collections and voracious readers of history.-David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela's prison years.From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa's other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela's own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC's struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC's rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not onlyor even primarilyfor himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book's various sections.A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history's most vital figures. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
