Mandela
Subtitle: my prisoner, my friend
By: Christo Brand with Barbara Jones
Contributors: Jones, Barbara, author
Publisher: John Blake
Published: 2004
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9781782199137
Subjects: Political prisoners; Biography; Politics and government; Race relations; African National Congress
Description: Christo Brand was a South African farm boy, born into the Afrikaans culture which had created apartheid to persecute black people and claim superiority for whites. Nelson Mandela, also raised in a rural village, was the black son of a tribal chief. He trained as a lawyer to take up the fight against apartheid on behalf of a whole nation. Their opposing worlds collided when Christo, a raw recruit from the country's prison service, was sent to Robben Island to guard the notoriously dangerous terrorists there. Mandela was their undisputed leader. The two of them, a boy of 18 and a long-suffering freedom fighter then aged 60, could well have become bitter enemies. Instead, they formed an extraordinary friendship through small human kindnesses.