num_pages: 736
description: Nelson Mandela, who emerged from twenty-six years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world's most admired leader, a man whose life has been led with exemplary courage and inspired conviction.Now Anthony Sampson, who has known Mandela since 1951 and has been a close observer of South Africa's political life for the last fifty years, has produced the first authorized biography, the most informed and comprehensive portrait to date of a man whose dazzling image has been difficult to penetrate. With unprecedented access to Mandela's private papers (including his prison memoir, long thought to have been lost), meticulous research, and hundreds of interviews--from Mandela himself to prison warders on Robben Island, from Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo to Winnie Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, and many others intimately connected to Mandela's story--Sampson has composed an enlightening and necessary story of the man behind the myth.
language: English
title: Mandela: The Authorized Biography
titlecomplete: Mandela: The Authorized Biography
characters: Nelson Mandela
genres: Biography, Leadership, South Africa, Politics, Collections, Nonfiction, Autobiography, History, Biography Memoir, Africa
ratings_count: 666
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Biography, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Alan Paton Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Marsh Biography Award
publisher: Vintage