Book Review: Good Morning, Mr Mandela

There is no need to wonder why ‘Good Morning Mr Mandela’ was an instant number one international best seller.

These are the memoirs of Zelda la Grange, the secretary to probably the most famous statesman of our time.

Zeldina, as Madiba affectionately called her, became the President’s most trusted and loyal assistant and she provides a unique insight into the daily life of this revered man.

As a white Afrikaner her privileged position at Madiba’s right hand was often questioned and criticised, but it is exactly decisions like these which reveal Madiba as a strategist who had a keen understanding of the need for transformation, starting in his own office.

Zelda shares her personal journey as she had to confront her own racist views when she joined the President’s office as a young woman who feared the ‘communist rebels’.

Her account of the journey and her relationship with Madiba is intriguing, uplifting and occasionally faintly indiscreet. She revered the man completely and dedicated many years of her life to serving him, to the detriment to her own personal life. But it is clear from this book that Zelda would not have exchanged this incredible relationship for anything.