Rian Malan

What a lost prison manuscript reveals about the real Nelson Mandela

New light is shed on the president's politics, smoothed over in 'Long Walk to Freedom'

Anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress (ANC) member Nelson Mandela raises clenched fist, arriving to address mass rally, a few days after his release from jail, 25 February 1990, in the conservative Afrikaaner town of Bloemfontein, where ANC was formed 75 years ago. (Photo credit should read TREVOR SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

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