The New York Times Book Review - Charlayne Hunter-Gault
…The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela contain 255 of his handwritten letters and display 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 Paarl, 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.
Publishers Weekly
04/02/2018
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)
Booklist [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.... 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.... 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."
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
"Heartbreaking and inspiring.... 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.... With words as his only ammunition, Mandela fought his case patiently, on lined paper, his eloquence inseparable from his rectitude."
Bob Drogin
"“It was with considerable delight and relief that I read The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela, an astonishing outpouring from his 27 years in prison — 10,052 days to be exact. Many of the 255 letters chosen and annotated here have never been published, and because they articulate his thinking and feelings in real time, they provide a new lens to view his personal and political growth. Most of all, they help explain how Mandela survived his grueling incarceration with his passions and integrity intact.”"
Tayari Jones
"These messages to family, friends, comrades, elected officials and prison administrators reveal a Mandela as vulnerable as any other human.... Mr. Mandela’s prison letters underscore isolation’s other violence: every incarcerated human is stripped of family. Separating a person from his kin is the ultimate expression of state power. I can’t help seeing, in the image of Mr. Mandela’s daughter begging for her father’s return, the children weeping at our southern border. Considering the solace and strength he took from these folded sheets of paper, it’s a marvel his captors allowed him any mail at all.... Mr. Mandela’s letters tell a story beyond their own words."
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-04-04
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 only—or even primarily—for 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.
