Intersection of the Personal and the Political Life in Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom

Abstract

The autobiography is a genre that focuses on the personal life of the autobiographer as narrated by him. In an autobiography, the autobiographical narrator engages in the reconfiguration and reconstruction of his own personal history which is inextricably connected to the social, political, economic and many other discursive contexts. Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom records the tension between the personal and the political in the context of Mandela’s life and shows how it resulted in the formation of a larger personal identity. Although Mandela’s autobiography revolves around the personal, the subjects that it incorporates are much broader and complex than a personal narrative. It is at the same time the story of his personal life and the story of how his country gained independence as seen and experienced by him. Mandela’s autobiography not only represents his personal life but it is also representative of an era. In writing his autobiography, he also writes the major political events that effected millions of lives. The autobiography documents Mandela’s life, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the struggle across Africa to shake off the control of colonial powers. This paper will address the interlacing of details pertaining to the individual as well as the political activist with a support base across Africa.