Winnie and Nelson: myths about a marriage

In 2024 thirty years have passed since Nelson Mandela was elected as the first black president of South Africa. He had been married to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela for 31 years, but the two of them had hardly ever lived together.

The South African author and academic Jonny Steinberg’s new biography of the iconic couple tells of a marriage in which politics and personality were deeply intertwined. The fact that Winnie and Nelson had such different experiences in the struggle against apartheid, leading to different political standpoints, stood in contrast to the unifying function the couple had as a symbol of hope for millions of repressed South Africans. Steinberg’s biography drills deep to expose how huge physical and mental tensions resulted in lifelong loneliness and anger for both.

In conversation between Jonny Steinberg and Ismail Mahomed, South African Centre for Creative Arts Director, topics broached will be deep love, scary misdeeds and the dissolution of one of the world’s best-known marriages.