Knowing Mandela

December 23, 2013
Journalist Carlin's (Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation) thoughtful blend of biography and personal encounters with the South African leader during a tumultuous historical period reveals a majestic human being as he builds his legacy as the world leader we know him today. Mandela's unfailing courtesy to everyone quickly eroded Carlin's cynicism, developed over 30 years of covering dictators. In an attempt to determine if Mandela's graciousness was innate or calculated, Carlin followed Mandela for the five years of his presidency and interviewed countless individuals who knew him in many capacities at the height of his power. What emerges is a portrait of a man well deserving of the admiration of his followers but whose political triumphs were "won at the cost of unhappiness, loneliness and disappointment," not the least of which was his inability to "reconcile political and family life." Carlin's interviews with Mandela's guard during his imprisonment, with his secretary, his valet and the elderly widow of one of apartheid's founding fathers all reveal a man who offered ordinary respect to everyone. A telling note was his friendship with Queen Elizabeth, so strong he called her by her first name. Carlin's journalistic skills and his effort to be objective present a lively picture of a personally disciplined man of great kindness as well as a clear view of the vast challenges facing South Africa. Agent: Anne Edelstein, Anne Edelstein Literary Agency.

December 1, 2013
Anecdotal, intimate remembrance of the South African leader by a journalist who grew to love him. As the South African correspondent for the London Independent during the key years between the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 and his election as president of South Africa in 1994, Carlin (Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, 2008) offers a thoughtful tribute to this unparalleled leader within the frame of his leadership legacy. The author looks at the various tactics Mandela used to bring about a nearly miraculous transition from apartheid to all-inclusive democracy in South Africa. His 27-year imprisonment had softened the edges of the African National Congress leader, who had served as head of the group's armed wing. He was condemned in his 1964 trial for taking up arms against the state; in prison at Robben Island and elsewhere, Mandela had turned his unimaginable suffering into a sense of duty, gravitas and forgiveness, even of his enemies. In prison, his natural graciousness won over even his white guards, and he began to study Afrikaans in an attempt to understand the Afrikaner and his history. Mandela's ability to take the long view, as Carlin delineates, allowed him to see beyond calls for vengeance after violence broke out within black townships, instigated by the rival Inkatha group or after the assassination of ANC leader Chris Hani by a white man in 1993. Mandela's magnanimity disarmed both blacks and whites, and his incredible stature as a much-needed peacemaker largely kept his estranged wife from being prosecuted for the violence and murderous actions she had encouraged in her bodyguards. Carlin zeroes in on Mandela's dignified capacity to allow all people, despite their backgrounds, to change and evolve for the good. A brief but moving look at the rare qualities of an effective, good-hearted leader.

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Starred review from February 1, 2014
Carlin was the first foreign correspondent to interview Mandela as president. As South African correspondent for the London Independent, Carlin covered Mandela's release from 27 years of imprisonment in 1990 and spent the next five years chronicling Mandela's presidency. The two men last met in 2009 as Mandela's health was failing. In this memoir, Carlin offers more than a news account of the presidency of an extraordinary world figure. He details the personal and political struggles of a man charged with holding together a fragile nation at the end of apartheid and coping with the heartbreak of his troubled marriage. Behind the scenes, Mandela was as gracious as he appeared in public, taking tea in the president's chamber in contrast to the petty rules of apartheid, when he would have been restricted to drinking from a tin cup. Mandela set the right tone, coping with fearful whites, angry blacks, and a political party worried that he'd been co-opted after so many years in prison. Carlin portrays a 71-year-old man of stunning charisma, disarming journalists, detractors, former jailers, parliamentary opponents, and world figures from Bill Clinton to Queen Elizabeth. Written with obvious affection and admiration, this is a moving portrait of a philosophical and visionary man who was also pragmatic enough to know that anger and revenge would destroy South Africa.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)