Overview

*Shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize* ‘Gripping and profoundly moving’ DAMON GALGUT ‘Deft and operatic’ OBSERVER From one of South Africa’s foremost nonfiction writers, a deeply researched, shattering new account of Nelson Mandela’s relationship with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Drawing on never-before-seen material, Steinberg reveals the fractures and stubborn bonds at the heart of a volatile and groundbreaking union, a very modern political marriage that played out on the world stage. One of the most celebrated political leaders of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela has been written about by many biographers and historians. But in one crucial area, his life remains largely untold: his marriage to Winnie. During his years in prison, Nelson grew ever more in love with an idealised version of his wife, courting her in his letters as if they were young lovers frozen in time. But Winnie, every bit his political equal, found herself increasingly estranged from her jailed husband ’ s politics. Behind his back, she was trying to orchestrate an armed seizure of power, a path he feared would lead to an endless civil war. Jonny Steinberg tells the tale of this unique marriage – its longings, its obsessions, its deceits – turning the course of South African history into a page-turning political biography. Winnie & Nelson is a modern epic in which trauma doesn’t just affect the couple at its centre, but an entire nation. It is also a Shakespearean drama in which bonds of love and commitment mingle with timeless questions of revolution, such as whether to seek retribution or a negotiated peace. Told with power and tender emotional insight, Steinberg reveals how far these forever entwined leaders would go for one another, and also, where they drew the line. For in the end both knew theirs was not simply a marriage, but a contest to decide how apartheid should be fought.

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Reviews

EARLY PRAISE FOR WINNIE & NELSON ‘Remarkable . . . In heartbreaking detail, Jonny Steinberg adds up the catastrophic toll on these two lives and the lives of people around them. Yet he never takes his eye off the larger picture, and the damage done to the Mandelas comes to stand for the damage done to millions; their history is the history of modern South Africa . . . [He gives] a fresh understanding of the crossroads at which my country now stands. Gripping and profoundly moving, this is Jonny Steinberg’s finest book. I can’t wait to read it again’ Damon Galgut, Booker Prize–winning author of The Promise, in Literary Hub ‘Based on far-ranging research as well as on a trove of recently uncovered materials . . . Steinberg’s massive essay in political biography is unlikely to be superseded in a long time’ J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate 2003 ‘Only Steinberg could have written a book in which Winnie and Nelson can appear both larger-than-life and all too human. What a book! What an achievement!’ Jacob Dlamini, author of The Terrorist Album ‘For so long the Mandelas were seen as they were lauded—the freedom fighters who birthed a nation. Yet behind the front lines and the headlines, always there is a shadow narrative, subtler and more complex, a story about revolution and marriage, power and revenge. In this remarkable dual political biography, Jonny Steinberg has at last told it. Winnie & Nelson is a powerful, page-turning political fable unlike any I’ve read’ Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Window Seat ‘This eloquent biography captures the mythic quality of these two leaders, their great love story and tragic estrangement, and the hubris and human frailty beneath the personas . . . A magnificent portrait of two people joined in the throes of making South African history’ Kirkus* Starred Review

EARLY PRAISE FOR WINNIE & NELSON ‘Remarkable . . . In heartbreaking detail, Jonny Steinberg adds up the catastrophic toll on these two lives and the lives of people around them. Yet he never takes his eye off the larger picture, and the damage done to the Mandelas comes to stand for the damage done to millions; their history is the history of modern South Africa . . . Gripping and profoundly moving, this is Jonny Steinberg’s finest book. I can’t wait to read it again’ Damon Galgut, Booker Prize–winning author of The Promise, in Literary Hub ‘Based on far-ranging research as well as on a trove of recently uncovered materials . . . Steinberg’s massive essay in political biography is unlikely to be superseded in a long time’ J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate 2003 ‘Only Steinberg could have written a book in which Winnie and Nelson can appear both larger-than-life and all too human. What a book! What an achievement!’ Jacob Dlamini, author of The Terrorist Album ‘Remarkable . . . a powerful, page-turning political fable unlike any I’ve read’ Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Window Seat ‘A new and excellent double biography of Nelson and Winnie. Steinberg is sensitive and imaginative and has a mature and insightful appreciation of the many painful emotional strains within the marriage, which was always under enormous political pressure. He is a talented writer and there is much that is new here. He has done a great deal of painstaking research, not only in the archives but on the ground too, seeking out and interviewing many minor actors’ Literary Review ‘This eloquent biography captures the mythic quality of these two leaders, their great love story and tragic estrangement, and the hubris and human frailty beneath the personas . . . A magnificent portrait of two people joined in the throes of making South African history’ Kirkus* Starred Review

EARLY PRAISE FOR WINNIE & NELSON 'Based on far-ranging research as well as on a trove of recently uncovered materials - as deeply sympathetic to Winnie, caught up in the whirlwind of insurrectionary violence, as to Nelson, trapped in his prison cell and losing touch day by day with the evolving situation on the ground - Steinberg's massive essay in political biography is unlikely to be superseded in a long time.' JM Coetzee, Nobel Prize Winning author of Disgrace 'For so long the Mandelas were seen as they were lauded - the freedom fighters, who birthed a nation. Yet, behind the frontlines and the headlines, always there is a shadow narrative, sublet and more complex, a story about revolution and marriage, power and revenge. In this remarkable dual political biography, Jonny Steinberg has at last told it. Winnie and Nelson is a powerful page-turning political fable unlike any I've read' Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Window Seat PRAISE FOR JONNY STEINBERG 'The best of the best among South Africa's nonfiction writers ... He places himself at the living, palpitating, always fragile heart of a story-in-the-making as it is being experienced ... but also combing and combining diverse realms of knowledge, testing them against each other ... The engagement that Steinberg so clearly experiences becomes a felt part of the reading experience: one starts caring for Steinberg's characters and their immediate destinies as one reads' LA Times

EARLY PRAISE FOR WINNIE & NELSON 'Remarkable . . . In heartbreaking detail, Jonny Steinberg adds up the catastrophic toll on these two lives and the lives of people around them. Yet he never takes his eye off the larger picture, and the damage done to the Mandelas comes to stand for the damage done to millions; their history is the history of modern South Africa . . . [He gives] a fresh understanding of the crossroads at which my country now stands. Gripping and profoundly moving, this is Jonny Steinberg's finest book. I can't wait to read it again' Damon Galgut, Booker Prize-winning author of The Promise, in Literary Hub 'Based on far-ranging research as well as on a trove of recently uncovered materials . . . Steinberg's massive essay in political biography is unlikely to be superseded in a long time' J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate 2003 'Only Steinberg could have written a book in which Winnie and Nelson can appear both larger-than-life and all too human. What a book! What an achievement!' Jacob Dlamini, author of The Terrorist Album 'For so long the Mandelas were seen as they were lauded-the freedom fighters who birthed a nation. Yet behind the front lines and the headlines, always there is a shadow narrative, subtler and more complex, a story about revolution and marriage, power and revenge. In this remarkable dual political biography, Jonny Steinberg has at last told it. Winnie & Nelson is a powerful, page-turning political fable unlike any I've read' Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Window Seat 'This eloquent biography captures the mythic quality of these two leaders, their great love story and tragic estrangement, and the hubris and human frailty beneath the personas . . . A magnificent portrait of two people joined in the throes of making South African history' Kirkus* Starred Review

PRAISE FOR WINNIE & NELSON ‘A gripping portrait of Africa’s most famous romantic couple . . . The most nuanced of storytellers, Steinberg has always had an extraordinary ability to get inside his protagonists’ heads . . . [and] is a superb chronicler of modern Africa, capturing the poignant, questing energy of its inhabitants’ lives like no other writer’ The Times ‘Winnie & Nelson is a beautiful and immensely sad book. Steinberg, a distinguished South African writer and scholar, chronicles that pain, and writes about each of them with insight and empathy . . . Winnie & Nelson is more than a joint biography, as good as it is at that; it’s a deft and operatic interweaving of two outsized characters’ Observer ‘An excellent new biography of the couple . . . Steinberg suspects that the couple’s myths will only endure – but his thorough interrogation of their story should help readers reconcile themselves with the messier truth’ Daily Telegraph, **** review ‘[A]n empathetic portrait of one of the most controversial power couples in history… What Steinberg does extremely well in this book is to pry those doors ajar using archive, interviews and never-seen-before transcripts of conversations between Winnie and Nelson during prison visits’ Sunday Times ‘Gripping and profoundly moving, this is Jonny Steinberg’s finest book. I can’t wait to read it again’ Damon Galgut, Booker Prize–winning author of The Promise, in Literary Hub ‘Unlikely to be superseded in a long time’ J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate 2003 ‘Remarkable . . . a powerful, page-turning political fable unlike any I’ve read’ Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Window Seat ‘An elegant and often profound exploration of the psyches of his subjects. There are a thousand vivid anecdotes in it, some so sad they will break your heart…this is a landmark book’ Rian Malan

Author Information

Jonny Steinberg is a South African writer and scholar who has taught at Oxford University, Yale and Wits University in Johannesburg. He is the author of several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa's transition to democracy. Two of them, Midlands (2002), about the murder of a white South African farmer, and The Number (2004), a biography of a prison gangster, won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. In 2013 he was awarded the prestigious $150,000 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize.

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