December 19, 2010
Neither saint nor icon, South Africa’s world-famous leader is still very much a hero in this close-up dramatic biography, both personal and political, about his activist years in the underground before he was sentenced to life in prison. (more…)
December 16, 2010
Nearly half a century ago, a South African judge pronounced a life sentence against Nelson Mandela for planning guerrilla war against the racist state. Mandela had expected hanging and, with his co-defendants, decided in advance not to appeal. (more…)
December 13, 2010
Midway through David James Smith’s absorbing account of the pre-Robben Island life of Nelson Mandela, the author breaks from his narrative to recount a scene in a hospital room in Johannesburg. In December 2004, Makgatho, Mandela’s estranged son from his first marriage, was dying of AIDS following years of alcoholism and aimlessness. (more…)
December 5, 2010
Anyone who was in college in the 1980s remembers the songs, posters, and T-shirts urging divestment from South Africa and freedom for its most celebrated political prisoner, Nelson Mandela. Those who watched his inauguration in 1994 as the first democratically elected president in his country’s history will recall the feeling of triumphant joy. (more…)
On the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine…
The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case by David James Smith:
Faber Finds edition with new preface, available September 15th, 2011.
Young Mandela the movie – in development.
From The Guardian
Read the article
In the Diary column of The Independent, April 13th, 2011
More on my previously unsubstantiated claim that the writer-director Peter Kosminsky, creator of The Promise, is working on a drama about Nelson Mandela. I’ve now learnt that the project is a feature film, in development with Film 4, about the young Mandela. Kosminsky is currently at work on the script and, given the complaints about the anti-Jewish bias of The Promise, it is unlikely to be a standard bland portrait of the former South African president.
Nelson Mandela was circumcised as a 16-year-old boy alongside a flowing river in the Eastern Cape. The ceremony was similar to those of other Bantu peoples. An elder moved through the line making ring-like cuts, and foreskins fell away. The boys could not so much as blink; it was a rite of passage that took you beyond pain. read full review
Jon Venables: What Went Wrong
BBC 1, 10.35
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
