BOOKS Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred
By Mark Gevisser
Jonathan Ball Publishers R225, 892 pages
In a month’s time, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress holds its most divisive leadership election in 50 years. It is an event that poses a serious test for the post-apartheid state. At the heart of the drama is Thabo Mbeki, the urbane, intellectual, enigmatic, prickly and paranoid president, as he has been variously described over the years. He is controversially running for a third term as leader of the party. Anyone who wants to go beyond those cliches, and also to understand what has happened in South Africa since the end of white rule, should read Mark Gevisser’s biography. In the process, they will get swept up in an extraordinarily compelling and at times infuriating and tragic story.
