Struggle History and Self-Help: The Parallel Lives of Nelson Mandela in Conventional and Figurative Biography

Abstract

My general impression, after reading several autobiographies, is that an autobiography is not merely a catalogue of events and experiences in which a person has been involved, but that it also serves as some blueprint on which others may well model their own lives … This book has no such pretentions as it has nothing to leave behind (Nelson Mandela, ‘Unpublished Sequel to Long Walk to Freedom’.)1