Long Walk to Freedom

Q: What is Long Walk to Freedom about?

Long Walk to Freedom , published in 1994, is the autobiography of the South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela . It recounts his life’s journey beginning with his childhood, but much of the book focuses on his decades-long struggle against South Africa’s racially discriminatory apartheid policies and his role in transitioning South Africa to a nonracial democracy , culminating in his presidency in 1994.

Q: What happened to Nelson Mandela’s second volume of memoirs?

Nelson Mandela began a second volume of memoirs, which resumed his story from where his first memoir, Long Walk to Freedom , ended: his years as president of South Africa . However, it was incomplete at the time of his death in 2013. The second volume was later completed by South African writer Mandla Langa and released posthumously as Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years in 2017.

autobiography by Mandela

Also known as: “Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela”(Show More)

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Amy McKenna

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History

What is Long Walk to Freedom about?

What happened to Nelson Mandela’s second volume of memoirs?

Long Walk to Freedom, autobiography by Nelson Mandela published in 1994. It recounts the life and struggle of Mandela, the Black nationalist leader who for most of his adult life fought against the racially discriminatory apartheid policies of South Africa’s white minority-led government before leading efforts to bring about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy and becoming the country’s first Black president in 1994.

Long Walk to Freedom begins with Mandela’s recollections of his childhood in rural South Africa, but much of the book focuses on his struggle against apartheid, detailing his work with the African National Congress, a Black nationalist organization, and, later, its paramilitary wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe; his experience as an underground freedom fighter; and his more than a quarter century of imprisonment, including his long incarceration at the notorious Robben Island Prison. It also includes his reflections on his release from prison in 1990, his role in the negotiations that led to the country’s transition from apartheid to a nonracial democracy, and his ascension to the presidency of South Africa in 1994.

Themes of struggle and loss but also hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation run throughout Mandela’s autobiography. He also sheds light on his relationships and interactions with other prominent leaders of the time as well as with his family, noting at one point with regret, “When your life is the struggle, as mine was, there is little room left for family.”

The autobiography was adapted into the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), with Idris Elba in the title role. Mandela’s second volume of memoirs was unfinished at the time of his death in 2013. It was completed by South African writer Mandla Langa and released posthumously as Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years (2017).