WATCH: Ghost writer revisits Mandela’s “lost tapes”
There’s probably one universal desire held by every journalist. That you get to interview and spend time with interesting people. For Richard Stengel, that desire couldn’t have been more fulfilled - as he spent hours with Nelson Mandela.
South African anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress (ANC) member Nelson Mandela waves to the press as he arrives at the Elysee Palace, 07 June 1990, in Paris, to have talks with French president Francois Mitterrand. (Photo by MICHEL CLEMENT and DANIEL JANIN / AFP)
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In the early nineties, Stengel helped Nelson Mandela ghostwrite his autobiography ‘Long Walk to Freedom’. Published in 1994, just a few years after Mandela was released from a 27-year term in prison, the book followed his journey from the son of a Xhosa chieftain, through his incarceration and to leadership of the African National Congress (ANC).
Stengel recorded over 70 hours worth of conversations with Mandela. But it was only recently that he revisited the tapes. Nearly three decades later, he reflects on the time he spent with one of the most influential of men in a new podcast, ‘ Mandela: The Lost Tapes ’.
