Long Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandela's autobiography follows his life from a boyhood tied to the royal Thembu dynasty, through schooling at Clarkebury, Healdtown and the University of Fort Hare, to a career in law. He describes joining the African National Congress, organizing underground resistance to apartheid, and the Rivonia Trial that ended with a life sentence for sabotage. He recounts his more than a quarter century in prison, on Robben Island and at Pollsmoor, with hard labour and cramped cells. The final chapters trace his release in 1990, his meeting with President Frederik Willem de Klerk and his rise to lead the country. Little, Brown first published it in 1994.

Barack Obama shared it on Facebook as part of his best of 2018 list, and Richard Branson included it in his list of 65 books worth reading over a lifetime. James Mattis named it among his favorite books in an appendix to Call Sign Chaos.