I have had a long-standing interest in South Africa, and in 1995 briefly contemplated moving there to work. The country had just had its first multiracial election, and the great Nelson Mandela had been elected president. I was deeply curious to see, at first-hand, what the land and its people would make of their hard-won freedom. In the event, the job I was interested in did not come through. Nonetheless, I continued to closely follow developments in the country and made five trips there, partly to travel and see friends, partly to consult what the archives had to say about an Indian who had once spent two decades in South Africa, Mohandas K Gandhi.
My interest in South Africa and its people was sparked afresh by a book I have been reading recently. This is Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie and Nelson, which uses the story of a single married couple as a window into the complex and conflict-ridden history of that still troubled land. The book begins with their first meeting, in 1957, when Nelson was blown away by Winnie’s beauty and vivaciousness. He was almost two decades older than her, already married and with children, yet this did not deter him from courting her…
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