If you think you know everything about Winnie and Nelson Mandela, award-winning author Jonny Steinberg will probably change your mind with his insightful portrayal of a couple who held the world’s attention for the longest time. Having read the book, DIANE DE BEER listens to the author speak about his latest endeavour:
Pictures from the book courtesy of the publishers
When I first spotted the book Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (Jonathan Ball), it was the author Jonny Steinberg who caught my attention.
Not that the Mandelas aren’t worthy, simply that I didn’t think another book on the Mandelas could shed new light. But Steinberg changed that presumption.
From the first time I had to read a Steinberg book – as he was going to be a guest speaker at one of our newspaper’s book lunches – I was a fan.
The Number, which dealt with gangs, was the one that did it. I had very little interest in the subject, thought I knew enough, but having read Steinberg’s well-researched and analytically astute account, I wasn’t going to miss any of his books again.
And when I saw he was to be one of the speakers at the Franschhoek Literary Festival 2023 where I was invited to do an interview with the delightful Nataniël, I was sold on reading and listening to the author’s conversation with Hlonipha Mokoena, an associate professor and researcher at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) where she specialises in African Intellectuals.
I picked the right one. Portrait of a Marriage should have been my clue because this is what this author does. He takes a topic which might not have crossed your radar in any sense of the word, and turns it on its head in a way that pulls you in and grabs your interest. It’s a gift and one that has turned him into one (if not the top) of our best non-fiction writers.
And one of the first obstacles he encountered was a feeling of shame because he found himself prying into the private world of these two icons – once again. Initially, he was going to write two books, one on each of these individuals, until someone pointed out that one would perhaps be more sensible and, ultimately, probably better.
This is where his own thoughts probably gathered momentum and insight. The question he wished to explore was Nelson’s sense of being and how much that was entwined with Winnie, especially while in prison – which was a punishing 27 years long.
Eli Weinberg, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
What Steinberg realised was that when imprisoned, Nelson didn’t know Winnie that well. That’s when a fantasy of the woman he loved started emerging. She became the dominant figure in his head. When a great man is written about, his personal life is obscured but the opposite is true for a woman. And this is where the blessing and curse of the Mandela name came into play.
With Nelson’s incarceration, the impact on Winnie and her two daughters was intense on many different levels. For instance, Nelson understood himself as head of the family and he wanted to preserve his wife and their marriage.
But this became difficult in prison because of their compromised relationship. All their conversations were recorded and transcribed. And again, it is these transcriptions that gave the author entrée and heightened insight into the Mandela couple. Yet in some ways they also made him a reluctant participant.
Copyright of Cloete Breytenbach, courtesy of Leon Breytenbach.
Many issues come into play. Because they were being recorded, something they were aware of, these intimate conversations were compromised from the start. For Steinberg it became a compromising decision. Could he use these conversations without compromising the couple’s dignity? “It’s unusual to eavesdrop in this way,” he explained.
For example, the pettiness of an incarcerated Nelson was one of those situations for Steinberg, yet he knew if he wanted to write the book, he needed the information.
From very early on, Winnie used her sexuality as power, says the author. And Nelson in a similar vein was always very aware of how he looked in the suits he used to wear. Unusual at the time and with his presence, an additional bonus. “They understood that their very being was a commodity,” notes Steinberg.
Bailey’s African History Archive/Africa Media Online.
Beauty complicated Winnie’s life. Right from the start, she was born into the struggle which determined her life. She understood how to pick winners and forget the losers. She also knew how to get under someone’s skin. Few people who met her could resist her and were left untouched.
In fact, it is the effect the Mandelas had individually and together that Steinberg explores and captures so well. Would life have been different if the couple had been less aware of their pulling power, their value as a commodity?
Winnie for example couldn’t be alone and always knew that she had to deliver on the expectations of others. She had to be what they wanted her to be. She even told tales about her childhood from very early on.
To protect herself, her reality often had to be concealed. Steinberg explains: she became the symbol of Black womanhood. She was able to become what people wanted and had a sense of her role in public life, believing that she was the centre piece.
For Nelson it was Fort Hare where the foundation of leadership was born.
When they came together, Winnie understood what it meant to be seen. The mission schools invested in the idea that Black men should marry Black women and the Mandelas represented that myth of the power couple. “Their marriage becomes a symbol for the struggle for freedom.”
Photo by Udo Weitz/AP/Shutterstock (7364405a)
Nelson understood the power of his and Winnie’s story with the focus on the romance between them. Their power did represent a nation and yet, they ended up being political enemies. Is there anyone in South Africa who lived through their story and wasn’t shattered by the dissolution of their marriage?
The irony of their relationship was that for Nelson his greatest fear for his country was civil war, while his wife was the embodiment of everything he feared.
Photo by © Louise Gubb/CORBIS SABA/Corbis via Getty Images
He becomes a powerful person, but in prison – and out of touch with what is happening. He is locked up by and with people who hate him and when he escapes, he does so in his imagination, The essence of Winnie’s life is her internal world of fire.
I was completely mesmerised by Steinberg’s deeply felt analytical writing about South Africa’s most powerful couple. Even before the advent of social media, with Nelson Mandela imprisoned and his wife under constant surveillance, they captured and kept the attention of the world.
Steinberg tells that story magnificently and with fresh insight and focus.
De Beer Necessities 