![]() “If calamities had the weight of physical objects,” Nelson wrote to Winnie in 1970, “we should long ago have been crushed down.” Steinberg, a distinguished South African writer and scholar, chronicles that pain, and writes about each of them with insight and empathy. ![]() The sheer amount of pain they each suffered – and inflicted on each other – is unimaginable. Winnie & Nelson is a beautiful and immensely sad book. Winnie was always able to wound her husband and he was always vulnerable to her guile. ![]() Winnie had brought the baby as a peace offering for her husband, who was angry about her very public infidelities, her lack of discipline and her seeming inability to control their daughter Zindzi. It was the first and only time he saw Mandela cry.Īs heartbreaking as that story is, it is also a tale of manipulation and bitterness. But then he took the baby from Winnie and let him hold her. The 62-year-old Mandela begged his young Afrikaner guard to let him hold the baby. This was a brazen violation of the rules: children or grandchildren had to be at least 16 years old to see a prisoner. ![]() That day, she did not bring her usual packages of food and papers, but a single bundle: their first grandchild, only a few months old. For years, he had only been allowed to see one visitor every six months. Nelson Mandela had been there since 1964. O n a brisk morning in 1980, Winnie Mandela went to visit her husband on Robben Island. ![]()
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