Knowing Mandela

After serving 27 years of a lifetime sentence for conspiring to overthrow South Africa's apartheid government, Nelson Mandela emerged to become both the catalyst and the symbol of post-apartheid South Africa. He served as the country's first black president and has since been internationally acclaimed as a powerful and vigilant humanitarian. At the age of 95, Mandela has spent most of 2013 in a hospital he may never leave. His followers prepare to mourn their beloved dignitary and celebrate his extraordinary life. John Carlin will be an integral part of this celebration. Carlin began covering South African politics while serving as the London Independent's Bureau Chief in South Africa in 1989, and has formed a relationship with Nelson Mandela in the decades since. Mandela has called Carlin's journalism "courageous" and "absolutely inspiring." Now, at the end of Mandela's life, Carlin reflects back on the man he has studied and admired for much of his career. The book will begin with Mandela's release from prison in 1990, and will end with the last time Carlin saw Mandela face-to-face in the early 2000s. Spanning decades, and chronicling both personal and national memories, Carlin's tribute to Mandela is a fitting retrospective on a life well lived and its enduring legacy.