Time Is Not The Measure – A Memoir
R180.00
Vusi Mavimbela is one of South Africa’s foremost political adventurers and wanderers. A writer of singular verve, humour and descriptive power, his memoir provides penetrating pen portraits of many well-known South African and African political actors, including martyred uMkhonto weSizwe guerilla Solomon Mahlangu, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Robert Mugabe and a galaxy of senior ANC exiles such as Joe Slovo, Chris Hani, Josiah Jele, Joel Netshitenzhe and Mac Maharaj.
He touches on and illuminates the personalities of many influential men and women in South Africa’s early democratic governments. But the heart of Mavimbela’s narrative lies in his unique experience of working as a top administrator and counsellor in the offices of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. In the most intimate detail, he describes the emergence and escalation of the conflict between those two flawed principals. He captures the drama of their struggle and its destructive fallout for the new South African state.
Mavimbela offers a potent warning: loyalty and long service to a political party is no guarantee of wise and effective leadership.
Author: Vusi Mavimbela
Based on 0 reviews
|
|
|
0% |
|
|
|
0% |
|
|
|
0% |
|
|
|
0% |
|
|
|
0% |
Related Products
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of his relationship with his fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother – his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic and deeply affecting. Whether being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping or simply trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his world with an incisive wit and an unflinching honesty.
Author(s): Trevor Noah
After his wife died, Rick Rigsby was ready to give up. The bare minimum was good enough. Rigsby was content to go through the motions, living out his life as a shell of himself. But then he remembered the lessons his father taught him years before – something insanely simple, yet incredibly profound. These lessons weren’t in advanced mathematics or the secrets of the stock market. They were quite straightforward, in fact, for Rigsby’s father never made it through third grade. But if this uneducated man’s instructions were powerful enough to produce a Ph.D. and a judge – imagine what they can do for you. Join Rigsby as he dusts off time-tested beliefs and finds brilliantly simple answers to modern society’s questions. In a magnificent testament to the “Greatest Generation” which gave so much and asked so little in return, Lessons from a Third Grade Dropout will challenge you while reigniting your passion to lead a truly fulfilling life. After all, it’s never too late to learn a little bit more about life – just ask the third-grade dropout.
Author(s): Ricky Rigsby
“Sometimes there is a void, a disarmingly candid account of the life of Zakes Mda, provides us with some answers. In this Memoir, Zakes weaves together past and present to give an intensely personal story of his development in life, as an artist, musician, film maker and beekeeper, and the events and people who shaped him.
Forced to follow his father into exile in Lesotho at Fourteen, Zakes became an exponent of fast living, frequenting sheebens to escape the confines of parental discipline. He involves himself in politics during his exile, and we see the ANC and PAC as they grow. We also witness the development of his musical and artistic talents from an early age, a little ahead of his literary gifts.”
Author: Zakes Mda
Out of stock
For more than five decades Walter and Albertina Sisulu were at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid. As secretary-general of the ANC, Walter was sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964 and spent 26 years in prison until his release in 1989. While her husband and his colleagues were in jail, Albertina played a crucial role in keeping the ANC alive underground, and in the 1980s was co-President of the United Democratic Front. Their story has been one of persecution, bitter struggle and painful separation. But it is also one of patience, hope and enduring love.
Author(s): Elinor Sisulu
Yusuf Daniels was the proverbial stougat among the children in his family. Growing up on the Cape flats, from Bridgetown to Portland and the occasional holiday in District six with his grandmother, he still loves to reminisce about childhood street games, family camping, beach days and the traditions that are part of his Muslim heritage.
Most coloured people will instantly recognise the memories. For those who were mere spectators at the time because of South Africa’s divisive past. Living coloured provides a front row seat to the coloured experience as seen through Daniel’s eyes and humour.
Author: Yusuf daniels
What I Know For Sure, a beautiful book with a ribbon marker, packed with insight and revelation from Oprah Winfrey. Organized by theme – joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power – these essays offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into the heart and mind of one of the world’s most extraordinary women, while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves. Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and frequently humorous, the words Oprah shares in What I Know For Sure shimmer with the sort of truth that readers will turn to again and again.
Author(s): Oprah Winfrey
Conversations With Myself is a moving collection of letters, diary entries and other writing that provides a rare chance to see the other side of Nelson Mandela’s life, in his own voice: direct, clear, private. An international bestseller, Conversations With Myself is an intensely personal book that complements his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. In his foreword to Nelson Mandela’s book, President Barack Obama writes: ‘Conversations With Myself does the world an extraordinary service in giving us [a] picture of Mandela the man.’ Conversations With Myself gives readers insight to the darkest hours of Nelson Mandela’s twenty-seven years of imprisonment and his troubled dreams in his cell on Robben Island. It contains the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom, notes from Madiba’s famous speeches, and even doodles made during meetings. There are photos from his life, journals written while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggles of the early 1960s, and conversations with friends in almost 70 hours of recorded interviews.
An intimate journey from the first stirrings of his political conscience to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations With Myself is an extraordinary glimpse of the man behind one of the world’s most beloved public figures. ‘More revealing of the man than his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom — and in many respects more moving as well’ F.W. De Klerk ‘A book that breaks the heart and then makes it sing’ Andrew Rawnsley, Observer Books of the Year ‘Intensely moving, raw and unmediated, told in real time with all the changes in perspective that brings, over the years, mixing the prosaic with the momentous. Health concerns, dreams, political initiatives spill out together, to provide the fullest picture yet of Mandela.’ Peter Godwin, Observer
Author(s): Nelson Mandela
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America – the first African-American to serve in that role – she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her – from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it – in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations – and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Author(s): Michelle Obama
Lerato Tshabalala first came to our attention in 2011 with her ‘Urban Miss’ column in the Sunday Times, and since then she has by turns entertained, exasperated, amused and confounded her fans and critics alike.
Now, with her first book, she looks set to become the national institution she deserves to be. With her customary wit and keen insight into social, political and cultural affairs, Lerato shines a bright – and controversial – light on South African society and the quirky ways of the country. She is brutally honest about her experiences as a black South African in post-apartheid Mzansi, and no subject is too sacred for her to explore: annoying car guards, white-dominated corporate South Africa, cultural stereotypes, economic and racial inequality, and gender politics, among many other topics, come under her careful – and often laugh-out-loud – scrutiny.
The Way I See It is written for people who are hungry for a book that is thought-provoking, funny, irreverent and truly South African all at the same time. It is light but full of depth: like a supermodel with an MBA!
Author(s): Lerato Tshabalala
While her younger brother Barack grew up in the U.S. and Indonesia, Auma Obama’s childhood played out at the other end of the world in a remote village in Kenya, the birthplace of the siblings’ shared father. Barack and Auma met for the first time in the 1980s, and they built a lasting relationship which led to travels together in Kenya, research into their family history, and Auma’s support for her brother’s political career and eventual bid for the U.S. presidency. Auma spent sixteen years studying and living in Germany, moved to England for love, and gave birth to a daughter there. The tension between her original and chosen worlds and cultures was a constant challenge, and eventually Auma returned to Africa and worked to support young men and women in shaping their futures. In this candid and emotional memoir, Auma shares her own story as well as recollections of and experiences with her famous brother, who says about their first encounter: “I hugged her, we looked at each other, and laughed. I knew right then that I loved her.”
Author(s): Auma Obama
The Cry of Winnie Mandela transgresses the borders between fact and fiction, fusing aspects of the novel, biography and essay. It is a beautiful book, the writing lucid and quietly passionate, a work of deep intelligence.~ Chris Dunton, Mail & Guardian
The life story of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great dramas of our times, an ongoing tale of triumphs and tragedies that is still unfolding. In The cry of Winnie Mandela, a highly acclaimed novel first released in 2003, Njabulo S Ndebele focuses on four women at a specific period in the history of Southern Africa who have spent time waiting for their men to return. Their ordinary, ‘private’ stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of Penelope, of Ancient Greek mythology, who waited nineteen years while her husband Odysseus was away, and Winnie Mandela, who waited for twenty seven years. The women question themselves and each about how and why they waited and what this waiting did to them, leading to a series of extraordinary and haunting ‘conversations’ with one another as well as Penelope and Winnie.
Author: Njabulo S Ndebele
This powerful and widely acclaimed autobiography of Sindiwe Magona’s early years in South Africa, announced the arrival of a major new black writer. Here she gives an account of her eventful first 23 years and tells a candid, unself-pitying story of trium.
Author(s): Sindiwe Magona



Reviews
There are no reviews yet.