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BOOK: Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg. (Jonathan Ball)
Today News24 can announce a new, ongoing project intended to bring extra attention to leading works by South African writers. It’s the News24 Book of the Month, and the first book to be a News24 Book of the Month is Jonny Steinberg’s Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (Jonathan Ball).
This extraordinary work, which goes into this famous marriage in detail and with empathy for the difficult lives led by both of the protagonists, is “unlikely to be superseded in a long time,” said Nobel laureate JM Coetzee.
Jacob Dlamini, author of celebrated works such as The Terrorist Album, Askari and Safari Nation, said of Winnie & Nelson: “Only Steinberg could have written a book in which Winnie and Nelson can appear both larger-than-life and all-too-human. What a book! What an achievement!”
Steinberg is the author of many non-fiction titles covering life in South Africa, two of which have won a Sunday Times Award. They include Midlands, The Number, Three-Letter Plague, One Day in Bethlehem and Little Liberia.
“I’m thrilled and honoured that Winnie & Nelson is the inaugural News24 Book of the Month,” says Steinberg. “I began working on it in earnest nearly five years ago now, and am so pleased finally to be sharing with readers the world that has been bubbling over in my head all this time.”
The book is described thus by its publishers:
“One of the most celebrated political leaders of our time, Nelson Mandela has been written about by many biographers and historians. But, in one crucial area, his life remains largely untold: his marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
“During his years in prison, Nelson grew ever more in love with an idealised version of his wife, courting her in his letters as if they were young lovers frozen in time. But Winnie, every bit his political equal, found herself increasingly estranged from her jailed husband’s politics...
“Jonny Steinberg tells the tale of this unique marriage – its longings, its obsessions, its deceits – making South African history a page-turning political biography.”
Watch this space for more coverage of Jonny Steinberg and Winnie & Nelson. An excerpt will appear on Saturday. The book will be on the shelves of bookshops within days.
Winnie & Nelson is a shattering, revelatory account of a relationship that shaped South Africa’s journey to freedom. Jonny Steinberg speaks to Hlonipha Mokoena about Winnie and Nelson’s unique marriage – its longings, its obsessions, its deceits – in this page-turning political biography.
Joanne Joseph speaks to Jonny Steinberg about Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage – a shattering, revelatory new account of a relationship that shaped South Africa’s journey to freedom, drawing on explosive new material.
