Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man

Richard Stengel

Richard Stengel is an American journalist, author and is the editor of TIME magazine, an important news magazine published in New York City. Stengel has authored some books including one of the most important, Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man, this was released in March 2010 and is based on Stengel's personal interactions with Nelson Mandela.

As he relate at the beginning of the book he spend almost three years collaborating with Nelson Mandela on Mandela´s autobiography called Long Walk to Freedom, eating with him, watching him campaign, hearing him… Stengel came to know all the different sides of this complex man. Though they began as colleagues, Mandela ultimately became a friend, it was Mandela who urged Stengel to marry the South African woman who became his wife, and who eventually became godfather to Stengel’s first son, but it's like a joke that the path of Stengel to Mandela was an accident; he took the place of other journalist who canceled his trip at the last minute. During the time that he spend whit Mandela he wrote a diary and much of the book comes from those notes.

Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man is a refining of their countless hours of conversation into what Stengel sees as fifteen core truths of Mandela’s life each truth is expanded and they are the chapters of the book:

1-Courage is not the absence of fear.

2-Be measured.

3-Lead from the front.

4-Look the part.

5-Lead from the back.

6-See the good in others.

7-Keep your rivals close.

8-Have a core principle.

9-Know when to say no.

10-Know your enemy.

11-It’s always both.

12-Love makes the difference.

13-It’s a long game.

14-Quitting is leading too.

15-Find your own garden.

For me the book left me one of the most important lessons of my life, when the hero, warrior, martyr, husband, statesman, and moral leader (as they call it in the book) lived a long time in jail he said that he mature but not in the sense who the people think in these times but mature for him is never lose that child who have all the people in your soul, so every day you'll be surprised, you become humble and you values everything that life gives you. For me that is the key for the life and for this and more reason Nelson Mandela liberated a country from a system of violent prejudice and helped unite oppressor and oppressed in a way that had never been done before.

I think that the book spurs us to look within ourselves, reconsider the things we take for granted, and contemplate the way we approach our life and the legacy we’ll leave be.

In conclusion I think everyone should read this wonderful book because you will be a better person, know

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