Skip to main content

Good Morning, Mr. Mandela by Zelda la Grange: book review



Good Morning, Mr. Mandela (2014) is the memoir of the woman who was Nelson Mandela’s secretary and personal aide for 19 years from 1994, when she was 23 years old, to 2013, when Mandela died at the age of 95.

On 10 May 1994 South Africa’s first democratically elected black president was inaugurated. He was Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), leader of the African National Congress (ANC), after his release from prison in 1990, serving 27 years for conspiring to overthrow the state. His presidency came after 43 years of apartheid – racial segregation – from 1948-1991. He was president for five years, and forever famous.

In Mandela’s aim to have an inclusive government administration, he chose Zelda la Grange, a white Afrikaner, as his typist. This is her story: the story of a young girl of white privilege who considered Mandela as a revolutionary and a terrorist. It is her journal of change and how one man – the very person she despised – led her nation to reconciliation and her life to one of duty and dedication to the person she called Khulu – grandfather.

La Grange describes the change as a ‘slow metamorphoses of the mind and a belief system’ and Mandela as her saviour.

She writes of the mundane daily life of a typist, yet it is full of political history, a history that the world followed through Mandela’s every word and deed. She writes of the first day at work as the president’s typist, when the president was already 76 years of age. She writes of his third wedding on his 80th birthday in 1998 to Graca Machel, 27 years his junior.

She also writes of the transition from his presidential office to his non-presidential years in which the Nelson Mandela Foundation developed. This included travel to visit the heads of state in other countries, and becoming Mandela’s ‘gatekeeper’ to ensure that the flow of people visiting him remained manageable.

The memoir is detailed and comprehensive, long and interesting, leaving out nothing, from the first day she met Nelson Mandela to the day of his funeral. Along the way are lessons in tolerance and understanding, forgiveness, loyalty, leadership and duty.






MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016 update on Rike Park, Tbilisi: from construction to busy park

From a flat patch of uninteresting dirt, Rike Park in Tbilisi, Georgia, has transformed in four years (from 2014-2016) into a busy park full of trees, flower beds, sculptures, fountains, and events. Rike (Rikhe) Park is on the left bank of the Mt’k’vari River (the Kura River) near the Old City of Tbilisi. The Peace Bridge links the right bank to Rike Park. Rike Park is below the hillside Presidential Palace and, via cable car, it is the starting point for the ride to Sololaki Ridge (with the Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue). The glass box-shaped cable car terminus was opened on 23 June 2012, and since then the park has continually developed into a ‘people’s park’ where people can walk around, eat at the nearby restaurants, sit next to the statue of American president Ronald Reagan, climb the steps to Avlabari district, and access the sights of Meidan Square, the Peace Bridge, the Metekhi Church, the Old City, the waterfall, the sulphur baths, and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Hop on hop off bus tourism comes to Tbilisi, Georgia

City Sightseeing buses have arrived in Tbilisi. The iconic red double-decker buses, a feature of many cities around the world since the company was established in Seville, Spain in 1999, is now in six continents and almost 100 cities. The company established its Tbilisi business in November 2013, with its operations commencing in February 2014. The 90-minute tour stops at 11 major locations in Tbilisi (with 2 to 5 minute waiting times at each location): the Old City (where it commences), Freedom Square, Rose Revolution Square, Marjanishvili Square, the Dry Bridge, Konka, Avlabari, Metekhi, Akhundov Museum, the Sulfur Baths, and European Square. Passengers can hop off at any stop and see the sights, hopping back onto the next bus at any time. Alternatively, passengers can remain on the bus for the whole tour and take photographs when the bus stops at each location. There are one day (24-hour) passes (for 35 lari – about $20) and 48-hour passes for 55 lari, with family d...
2 comments
Read more