Rita Barnard is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and Professor Extraordinaire at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is the author of The Great Depression and the Culture of Abundance (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and Apartheid and Beyond: South African Writers and the Politics of Place (2006). Her work has appeared in several important collections about South African culture and in journals such as Novel, Contemporary Literature, Cultural Studies, Research in African Literatures, and Modern Fiction Studies.

• Introduction Rita Barnard; Part I. The Man, the Movement, and the Nation: 1. The antinomies of Nelson Mandela Philip Bonner; 2. Mandela, the emotions, and the lessons of prison David Schalkwyk; 3. 'Madiba magic': politics as enchantment Deborah Posel; 4. Nelson, Winnie, and the politics of gender Brenna Munro; Part II. Reinterpreting Mandela: 5. Mandela and tradition Zolani Ngwane; 6. Mandela and the law Adam Sitze; 7. Mandela on war Jonathan Hyslop; 8. Mandela's presidential years: an Africanist view Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu; Part III. Representing Mandela: 9. Mandela writing/writing Mandela Daniel Roux; 10. Mandela in film and television Litheko Modisane; 11. The visual Mandela: a pedagogy of citizenship Lize van Robbroeck; 12. Mandela's mortality Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe; Guide to further reading; Index.

'This book of twelve essays (almost entirely by South Africans) with an excellent introductory essay by Rita Barnard is inaugural … His life story will be revised, his politics reinterpreted like Gandhi's. Like Gandhi, it will take time for reasoned, critical (and perhaps even deconstructive) judgments to arise. This book is a superb start.' Daniel Herwitz, Critical Inquiry