Mandela: The Authorised Portrait - Tapa dura

This magnificent book will be published throughout the world on 2 October 2006. It will contain the first publication of original material by Mandela, including prison writings which were discovered earlier this year, and will be illustrated with more than 250 photographs and other images sourced from the Nelson Mandela Foundation. An extensive 40,000 word narrative will tell the story of his life, supplemented by interviews with over 60 of the world's most significant political figures, business and campaigning figures, fellow South Africans, sporting, literary and musical celebrities. These interviews will focus on specific areas of Mandela's life and work, and his influence on the interviewees, who include Tony Blair, Bono, Bill Clinton, Bob Hughes, Lord Kinnock, Muhammad Ali, Kofi Annan, Sir Richard Branson, Andre Brink, George Soros, Sir Sidney Poitier, Fergal Keane, President Mbeki, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Judge Albie Sachs, Gillian Slovo, Helen Suzman, Nadine Gordimer, Lord Healey, Lord Attenborough, Cyril Ramaphosa, Helen Suzman, Baroness Boothroyd and Stevie Wonder.

Mike Nicol (author of the narrative biography )has published four novels and works of non-fiction, including A Good-Looking Corpse. He has contributed to many newspapers, including the Sunday Times and the Guardian. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Cape Town. Dr Rosalind Coward ( interviewer ) has contributed to the Guardian and the Observer. Her book, Diana: The Portrait was published in 2004. Professor Tim Couzens (interviewer ) is the author of three works of non-fiction including Murder at Morija and is Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Witswatersrand.