Volume 33, Number 8 · May 8, 1986
Waiting for Mandela
By J.M. Coetzee
Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement
by Mary Benson, foreword by Bishop Desmond M. Tutu
Norton, 269 pp., $16.95
Part of My Soul Went With Him
by Winnie Mandela, edited by Anne Benjamin, adapted by Mary Benson
Norton, 164 pp., $5.95 (paper)
Winnie Mandela
by Nancy Harrison
Braziller, 183 pp., $14.95
Dispensations: The Future of South Africa as South Africans See It
by Richard John Neuhaus
Eerdmans, 317 pp., $16.95
The recent bid by the South African government to exchange Nelson Mandela for two Soviet dissidents is only one in a long series of efforts it has made to disencumber itself of its most famous political prisoner. As long ago as 1973 Mandela was offered freedom (of a sort) if he would agree to lead a retired life in the Transkei 'homeland.' He refused. In 1985 he was offered release on the sole condition that he would distance himself from the advocacy of force. 'Only free men can negotiate,' he responded. 'Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.' He and the imprisoned senior leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) thus seem to be content, for the time being, to let Pretoria stew in its own juice.
Review, 3548 words
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