The Book of Forgiving

Starred review from January 20, 2014
Though ostensibly retired from public life, Nobel Peace Prize–winner and emeritus archbishop Desmond Tutu still has much to say. His newest book on forgiveness in some ways extends and applies the lessons of his pathbreaking No Future Without Forgiveness (1999). Both books draw on his experience heading South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but this is freshly informed with experiences that include smaller slights and insults as well as more traumatic wrongs, among them the murder of the housekeeper of Mpho Tutu, daughter of Desmond Tutu. The father-daughter pair relate stories but also include instructions on how to forgive, as well as scientific and moral reasons to do so. No one is unforgiveable; it takes a moral icon such as Tutu to credibly assert this. The book may get a boost from the recent death of Nelson Mandela, about whom Tutu says, “It took 27 years for him to be transformed from an angry, unforgiving young radical into an icon of reconciliation…” This book belongs on nightstands, shelves, and altars everywhere. Agent: Lynn Franklin, Lynn C. Franklin Associates.