> Skip to content
  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407089737
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:

After Mandela

The Battle for the Soul of South Africa




The definitive book on post-apartheid South Africa from an award-winning journalist

The definitive book on post-apartheid South Africa from an award-winning journalist

When Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress declared victory over the bitter injustice of apartheid, some thought South Africa's future was assured. But despite Mandela's mission of reconciliation, rampant inequality remains; race relations are uneasy, violence is endemic and many in the ANC appear to have lost sight of the liberation ideals. With the election in 2009 of Jacob Zuma, a charismatic populist embroiled in scandal, uncertainty over the trajectory of the nation has only intensified.

South Africa now stands at a crossroads, and award-winning journalist Alec Russell draws on his deep knowledge of the country to tell us how it got there and to give us a compelling account, revised and updated for this edition, of the journey from Mandela to Zuma.

  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407089737
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:

About the author

Alec Russell

Alec Russell is News Editor of the Financial Times and was formerly their Johannesburg bureau chief. He has been a foreign correspondent since arriving in Romania aged 23, ten days after the 1989 Christmas Revolution, to start his career in journalism. He previously covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the end of apartheid for the Daily Telegraph, where he was Foreign Editor from 2001 to 2003. He has won several prizes and commendations in the annual British Press Awards. His writing from southern Africa earned him a prestigious award for the best published feature on Africa in 2007. He is the author of several books, including After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa. He is married, has two sons and lives in London.

Praise for After Mandela

Gripping, lively and immensely readable.

David Blair, Daily Telegraph

Insightful, sometimes humorous, sometimes bleak ... Alive with delicious vignettes across a range of humanity

The Economist

This is the book we have all been waiting for - the book that takes us beyond the easy assumptions and lazy comfort of the Mandela era and into what Alec Russell calls the second struggle. Eloquently he shows how transforming the magic of freedom into a nuts-and-bolts change in the lives of ordinary people is turning out to be far more difficult than anyone could have imagined. The strength and power of Russell's book lies not just in the big - and often disturbing - conclusions he has reached but in the little details that have got him to that point. This is not a book written from afar . . . After Mandela could only have been written by a man who actually cares about what happens to the people he has met on his journey through South Africa's recent history

George Alagiah

A brisk, lively and vividly written portrait of post-apartheid South Africa

Peter Godwin, author of Mukiwa

An informative, nuanced, and provocative end-of-era report ... Layered with anecdote, historical background and close scrutiny of recent events ... After Mandela is a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of the rainbow nation. Alec Russell has looked at the country with a sympathetic and knowledgeable eye and he leaves his reader with a deep understanding of the challenges to come.

Gillian Slovo, Financial Times

Exciting contemporary history, a must for anyone concerned with what is happening now. Scathing in his criticism of newly rich magnates, he also exposes the two-faced liberals

Booklist

Russell does not pull punches in describing the widespread disillusionment ... but he does seek to put the ruling party's shortcomings in context

Observer

The ingenious plot leads from corruption at the top to a shocking and wholly believable revelation

The Sun

Unsparing account . . . simultaneously bracing and really quite depressing

Time Out