Danny Schechter just published a new book, Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela.
It is an excellent which covers the complex and important life of Nelson Mandela, the freedom fighter and global icon. The book is informative, enriching and provocative. I highly recommend it for your reading list.
This is what is posted on Amazon:
From the makers of the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a completely unique biography and thematic telling of the story of Nelson Mandela. This book, which provided key source material for the film, is an unexpurgated collection of the views and opinions of South Africa’s first Black president, and it draws on Danny Schechter’s forty-year relationship with “Madiba,” as Nelson Mandela is known in his native South Africa.
Each chapter of this unique portrait corresponds to a letter of the alphabet, and the letters cover major and minor, unexpected and fascinating themes in Mandela’s life and his impact on others: Athlete, Bully, Comrade, Forgiveness, Indigenous, Jailed, Militant, and President, to name a few. The book quotes liberally from Mandela himself, his ex-wives and other family members, global leaders, Mandela’s cellmates and guards on Robben Island, the team behind Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, former president F. W. de Klerk, members of the South African Police, and his comrades including his successor Thabo Mbeki.
Madiba A to Z reveals sides of Nelson Mandela that are not often discussed and angles of the anti-apartheid movement that most choose to brush under the table in order to focus on the happy-ending version of the story. As Schechter reports in the book, according to Mandela’s successor as president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, “the fundamental problems of South Africa, poverty, inequality, have remained unchanged since 1994.” This is partly because, as Schechter writes, “six months before the 1994 elections, when South Africa was being governed jointly by the ANC and the National Party under a Transitional Executive Council (TEC), there were secret negotiations about the economic future.”
There are many rarely spoken of revelations in Madiba A to Z, a book about Mandela’s brilliance, his courage, his tremendous impact in saving his country and its people of all races, but one that also shows how far South Africa still has to go.
Review
“Here is story-telling that is unique, refreshing, and revealing, and the Nelson Mandela who emerges—more nuanced than I ever understood and even more admirable—is someone you will want to know. You will be both surprised by Mandela’s profoundly complex personality and grateful for Danny Schechter’s creative journalism.”—Bill Moyers
“Danny Schechter’s life-long involvement with the freedom movement in South Africa is very well known and respected. He knows Nelson Mandela’s story deeply and his new book features insights and stories we haven’t heard before.”—Reverend Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader and President of Rainbow Push
___________________________________________________________________
DANNY SCHECHTER is an American journalist and a documentary filmmaker who made six non-fiction films with Mandela and who was asked personally by the filmmakers of LONG WALK TO FREEDOM to make a five-hour television documentary about the making of the forthcoming film. Schechter has worked in South Africa since the 1960s, which has given him unprecedented access to insiders. Schechter wrote about the liberation struggle and produced a TV news magazine for three years in its most crucial years l988-91. Having worked both in public television and for CNN and ABC News, Schechter has been part of the anti-apartheid movement globally, earning him the confidence of many activists and leaders. He continues to work around the world and lives in New York City.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim 