Screen Library491 days : prisoner number 1323/69 /
On a freezing winters night, a few hours before dawn on May 12 1969 South African security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Madikizela Mandela activist and wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and arrested her in the presence of her two young daughters then aged nine and ten. Rounded up in...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Group Author: | |
| Published: |
Ohio University Press,
|
| Publisher Address: | Athens, Ohio : |
| Publication Dates: | 2013. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Series: |
Modern African writing
|
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
On a freezing winters night, a few hours before dawn on May 12 1969 South African security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Madikizela Mandela activist and wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and arrested her in the presence of her two young daughters then aged nine and ten. Rounded up in a group of other antiapartheid activists under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act designed for the security police to hold and interrogate people for as long as they wanted she was taken away. She had no idea where they were taking her or what would happen to her children. For her this was the start of 491 days of detention and two trials. Forty one years after her release on September 14 1970 Greta Soggot the widow of one of the defense attorneys from the 1969 1970 trials handed her a stack of papers that included a journal and notes she had written while in detention, most of the time in solitary confinement. Their reappearance brought back to her vivid and horrifying memories and uncovered for the rest of us a unique and personal slice of South Africa s history. This book shares with the world her moving and compelling journal along with some of the letters written between several affected parties at the time including she and Nelson Mandela himself then a prisoner on Robben Island for nearly seven years. Readers gain insight into the brutality she experienced and her depths of despair, as well as her resilience and defiance under extreme pressure. This young wife and mother emerged after 491 days in detention unbowed and determined to continue the struggle for freedom. -- From publisher's website. |
| Carrier Form: | xi, 251 pages ; 24 cm. |
| ISBN: |
9780821444924 : 0821444921 |
| Index Number: | DT1949 |
| CLC: | K834.787 |
| Call Number: | K834.787/M271-10 |
| Contents: | Part One Journal -- Arrest -- Detention -- Acquittal and re-detention -- State of mind -- The decision -- Health -- Interrogation -- Interrogation and other issues -- Attitude of the interrogators -- May diary -- June diary -- July diary -- My husband -- New trial -- Part Two Letters -- Epilogue / by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela -- Twenty years in the life of Winnie Mandela -- Sixteen months in the life of Winnie Mandela: 12 May 1969 to 14 September 1970. |