These are riveting memoirs of one of the great moral and political figures of our time, an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating story.

Mandela recounts his youth, as the foster son of a Thembu chief, raised in the traditional tribal culture of his ancestors as he grew to learn the inescapable reality of apartheid oppression. In elegant prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg and of his slow political awakening. He also describes his personal struggles at that time of having to reconcile his political activity with family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separation from his children.

The escalating political warfare in the 1950s between the ANC and the government is vividly brought to life, culminating in Mandela's dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He recounts the surprisingly eventful 27 years in prison and the complex negotiation which led to both his freedom and to the beginning of apartheid's end.

Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela tells of his extraordinary life — an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account of the unforgettable events since his release that produced at last a free, multiracial democracy in South Africa. To millions of people around the world, Nelson Mandela stands, as no other living figure does, for the triumph of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, of self-discipline and love over persecution and evil.