CONTAINING bitter family feuds and Graça Machel’s humiliating treatment, Zelda la Grange’s new book offers readers a glimpse into the Mandela family drama.
The book, titled Good Morning, Mr Mandela, focuses on the personal assistant’s time with one of South Africa’s most iconic statesmen, the late Nelson Mandela, and will be released on 19 June.
In an article published in The Sowetan, La Grange described the way Mandela’s widow, Machel was treated by members of the Mandela family.
“I don’t know of any person alive who has been treated with the amount of disrespect that people have shown Mrs Machel,” she said.
She also added details of how the widow had to get accreditation to attend her late husband’s funeral and was only allocated four seats at the service.
Further revelations include the family’s exclusion of life-long friends when the statesman fell critically ill, while strangers were allowed to visit him.
Meanwhile, ahead of the release, publishers Penguin have described the book as an “extraordinary story of how a young woman had her life and everything she once believed in transformed by the greatest man of her time”.
Helen Conford, publishing director at Penguin, added that the book will “touch lives” and move readers by its content.
“It [the book] shines with honesty and love. The lessons Nelson Mandela gave her [La Grange] offer hope to everyone,” said Conford.
La Grange worked with Mandela from 1994, when he became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, and she was a founding staff member of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
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