A sequel of Nelson Mandela’s 1995 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, will be published next year by Pac Macmillian, which owns the U.K. and Commonwealth rights to the work, off a little-known, unfinished manuscript handwritten by “Mandiba” himself.
The forthcoming title will spotlight the political maelstrom around South Africa’s inaugural black president, who was tasked with creating a post-apartheid multicultural democracy amid a burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis, the dissolution of his marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and the social acrimony exposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
After Mandela’s death in December 2013, his widow Graca Machel showed the nearly 230,000-word manuscript to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which organized a committee to edit the book, led by South African politician and analyst Tony Trew, reports the Guardian.
Approximately a third of the book will be based on Mandela’s writing, while the rest will be written by Trew. The tome is also due to controversially confirm that Mandela favored Cyril Ramaphosa instead of eventual President Thabo Mbeki to succeed him.
Mandela’s first autobiography was co-written by Richard Stengel, former TIME managing editor and Obama’s current Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Stengel’s work produced a worldwide bestseller that also spawned a 2013 movie adaptation.
The 115-chaptered Long Walk to Freedom outlined Mandela’s transition from prisoner to president, but it paused at 1994, without delving into Mandela’s presidency.
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