Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage

A stunningly accomplished biography of the lives of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikezela-Mandela, told through the prism of their marriage. It’s compulsory reading for anyone interested in how South Africa’s democracy was forged, and how the fault lines of that history are playing out in the country’s present. This is no hagiography – author Jonny Steinberg has included the bad with the good. Many readers will feel the shock of revelation about the all too human frailties of Winnie and Nelson, but ultimately be enriched by the details of the roles they played in bringing South Africa to a necessarily compromised freedom.