Nelson Mandela Prison Letters to be Published for the First Time

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison before being released, becoming the country’s first black head of state and ending apartheid in South Africa, and in this time he had plenty of spare hours to write letters. Despite the time passing since his release, and his death in 2013, these letters have never been seen but all that is about to change as publishers W W Norton announce that they will be publishing the ‘authorise and authentic’ collection next year.

The letters have been assembled from a collections held by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the South African Archives and the Mandela family. Mandela was a political prisoner between 1962 and 1990, in which time he had plenty of time for writing, writing hundreds of letters to loved ones, to authorities and to government officials. These letters will now be serialised in this new collection with Volume 1 expected in July 2018.

The first volume is expected to contain around 250 of these letters, with the collection eventually split over two volumes. The collection has been ordered chronologically and split between the various prison venues where Mandela was incarcerated. The prisons are Petoria Local Prison, Robben Island Prison, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison where he would finally be released from on 11th February 1990.

The new book will be called The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela and while there’s no cover reveal yet, pre-order is now available with a release date of 18^th July 2018.

We’re sure these letters will offer a fascinating insight into the man, his struggle and the fight he led against apartheid even from prison, and we’d almost guarantee that this will be one of the best selling nonfiction books of next year.

The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela US
The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela UK