Book Review: Good Morning, Mr. Mandela by Zelda la Grange

About:
Good Morning, Mr. Mandela by Zelda la Grange is a memoir of Mr. Mandela’s private secretary.  This is Ms. la Grange’s first book, which I understand caused some controversy as it is the first such memoir to come out after Mr. Mandela’s death.

• 384 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525428283

My rating for Good Morning, Mr. Mandela – 5

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Thoughts:
Good Morning, Mr. Mandela by Zelda la Grange is a heartfelt memoir in which Ms. la Grange shares with the reader her intimate and personal knowledge of Mr. Mandela. The author confirms what we already know; Mr. Mandela was a great humanitarian, an excellent leader and simply, a wonderful human being.

Ms. la Grange was very close to Mr. Mandela, in fact he called her his “adopted granddaughter” and was handpicked by Mr. Mandela as a young Afrikaan girl.  At first Ms. la Grange was skeptical, being brought up to think blacks were inferior, however Mr. Mandela changed her mind as he changed the whole country.

I really liked the way the book is laid out, not only chronologically but by relevant sections within each timeline. For example the section in which the author starts to work for Mr. Mandela takes place between 1994 – 1999 and is told in sections titled “Meeting Mr. Mandela”, “Working for a President”, “Traveling with the President”, etc.

What I really liked about this book is that it’s obviously written from the heart with honesty and integrity. Ms. la Grange was completely devoted to her job and to Mr. Mandela, she put her personal life on hold to serve him and her country, the last chapters dealing with Mr. Mandela’s death (and the circus around it) are truly sad.

 Buy this book in paper or electronic format*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account