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A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream
In this gripping social history of South Africa, award winning journalist Mark Gevisser follows the family of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to make sense of the legacy of liberation struggle andunderstand thefuture of the country under Jacob Zuma.With unparalleled access to Mbeki and Zuma as well askey ANC brass, Gevisser presents an intimate yet accessible account of South Africa's past, present and future. With his stunning account of the Mbeki family's history as a backdrop, Gevisser fleshes out the very human elements of a monumental period in world history that will continue to shape African politics for years to come.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2009
2 people are currently reading
258 people want to read
About the author
Mark Gevisser
16 books51 followersMark Gevisser is one of South Africa’s leading authors and journalists. His next book “Dispatcher”, about his personal relationship with his home-town Johannesburg, will be published by Farrar Straus Giroux and Atlantic Press in 2013.
Gevisser has been awarded an Open Society Followship for 2012/13 working on The Sexuality Frontier. During his fellowship he will be looking at the ways ideas about sexuality and gender identity are changing globally, and how this is changing the way people think about themselves and their worlds. He will travel to United States, India, Nepal, Russia, Hungary, Poland, China, Turkey, Lebanon, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Brazil, Argentina and Western Europe.
Gevisser’s book A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. It was the winner of the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize.
Gevisser was born in Johannesburg in 1964, and educated and King David and Redhill Schools. He graduated from Yale in 1987 with a degree magna cum laude in comparative literature and worked in New York as a high school teacher and writing for Village Voice and The Nation, before returning to South Africa in 1990. His journalism has appeared in publications and journals including Granta, the New York Times, Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Public Culture and Art in America.
Gevisser has previously published two books – Defiant Desire, Gay and Lesbian Lives In South Africa which he co-edited with Edwin Cameron, and Portraits of Power: Profiles in a Changing South Africa, a collection of his celebrated political profiles from the Mail & Guardian. He has also published widely, in anthologies, on sexuality and on urbanism in South Africa. His publications on art include a biographical essay on Nicholas Hlobo and a response to William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx‘s The Firewalker. He has also published an essay on Thabo Mbeki‘s legacy.
Gevisser’s feature-length documentary, The Man Who Drove With Mandela, made with Greta Schiller, has been broadcast internationally, and won the Teddy Documentary Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1999. The film is an excavation of the life of Cecil Williams, the South African gay communist theatre director. Mark has also written scripts for the South African drama series Zero Tolerance; his scripts were short-listed for SAFTA and iEmmy awards.
Since 2002, Gevisser has been involved in heritage development. He co-led the team that developed the heritage, education and tourism components of Constitution Hill, and co-curated the Hill’s permanent exhibitions. He is a founder and associate of Trace, a heritage research and design company. His Exhibition Joburg Tracks was exhibited at Museum Africa. Gevisser works as a political analyst and public speaker; his clients have included several South African and multinational organisations and corporations.
From 2009 to 2011, Gevisser was Writing Fellow in the Humanities Faculty at the University of Pretoria, where he taught in the journalism programme and ran a programme on public intellectual activity. He is an experienced writing teacher, and has conducted narrative non-fiction workshops in South Africa and Kenya. In 2011, he was a Carnegie Equity Fellow at Wits University, and convened a major event at the university on creativity and memory featuring Nadine Gordimer, William Kentridge, Hugh Masakela, Zoe Zicomb and Chris van Wyk.[1][2][3]
Gevisser has been awarded an Open Society Followship for 2012/13 working on The Sexuality Frontier. During his fellowship he will be looking at the ways ideas about sexuality and gender identity are changing globally, and how this is changing the way people think about themselves and their worlds. He will travel to United States, India, Nepal, Russia, Hungary, Poland, China, Turkey, Lebanon, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Brazil, Argentina and Western Europe.
Gevisser’s book A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. It was the winner of the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize.
Gevisser was born in Johannesburg in 1964, and educated and King David and Redhill Schools. He graduated from Yale in 1987 with a degree magna cum laude in comparative literature and worked in New York as a high school teacher and writing for Village Voice and The Nation, before returning to South Africa in 1990. His journalism has appeared in publications and journals including Granta, the New York Times, Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Public Culture and Art in America.
Gevisser has previously published two books – Defiant Desire, Gay and Lesbian Lives In South Africa which he co-edited with Edwin Cameron, and Portraits of Power: Profiles in a Changing South Africa, a collection of his celebrated political profiles from the Mail & Guardian. He has also published widely, in anthologies, on sexuality and on urbanism in South Africa. His publications on art include a biographical essay on Nicholas Hlobo and a response to William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx‘s The Firewalker. He has also published an essay on Thabo Mbeki‘s legacy.
Gevisser’s feature-length documentary, The Man Who Drove With Mandela, made with Greta Schiller, has been broadcast internationally, and won the Teddy Documentary Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1999. The film is an excavation of the life of Cecil Williams, the South African gay communist theatre director. Mark has also written scripts for the South African drama series Zero Tolerance; his scripts were short-listed for SAFTA and iEmmy awards.
Since 2002, Gevisser has been involved in heritage development. He co-led the team that developed the heritage, education and tourism components of Constitution Hill, and co-curated the Hill’s permanent exhibitions. He is a founder and associate of Trace, a heritage research and design company. His Exhibition Joburg Tracks was exhibited at Museum Africa. Gevisser works as a political analyst and public speaker; his clients have included several South African and multinational organisations and corporations.
From 2009 to 2011, Gevisser was Writing Fellow in the Humanities Faculty at the University of Pretoria, where he taught in the journalism programme and ran a programme on public intellectual activity. He is an experienced writing teacher, and has conducted narrative non-fiction workshops in South Africa and Kenya. In 2011, he was a Carnegie Equity Fellow at Wits University, and convened a major event at the university on creativity and memory featuring Nadine Gordimer, William Kentridge, Hugh Masakela, Zoe Zicomb and Chris van Wyk.[1][2][3]
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 1, 2014
By most accounts, Mark Gevisser's new book Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the future of the South African Dream is a masterful and sweeping biography of an immensely complex and influential man.
I agree. Having completed my reading last week, I think I have gained some important insight into the experiences and ideologies that have shaped one of the most important leaders of the new South Africa.
At the same time, I feel a bit tangled up by the book, ensnared in a mess of truth, impressions and speculation woven by Gevisser, himself. As I have told friends and colleagues, Legacy of Liberation is worthwhile reading for anyone who can ignore an author who seems to wish he was a character in the book and whose gratuitous psychoanalysis of the former South African president is a distraction at best.
I agree. Having completed my reading last week, I think I have gained some important insight into the experiences and ideologies that have shaped one of the most important leaders of the new South Africa.
At the same time, I feel a bit tangled up by the book, ensnared in a mess of truth, impressions and speculation woven by Gevisser, himself. As I have told friends and colleagues, Legacy of Liberation is worthwhile reading for anyone who can ignore an author who seems to wish he was a character in the book and whose gratuitous psychoanalysis of the former South African president is a distraction at best.
November 3, 2009
This book is very well written and gives insightful meaning to the man Thabo Mbeki,that assumed the presidency after Nelson Mandela.
January 3, 2026
As a book club runner seeking works that clearly present South African history for younger audiences, A Legacy of Liberation is a solid but uneven read. The book is most effective in tracing Thabo Mbeki’s early life and upbringing, offering useful insight into how his politically engaged family, years in exile, and education shaped his intellectual confidence and worldview. The sections covering his young adulthood provide helpful context for understanding the origins of his Pan-African vision and leadership style.
The examination of Mbeki’s presidency is balanced and informative. The author highlights his strengths—policy competence, global stature, and commitment to an African Renaissance—while also addressing the political missteps and internal ANC dynamics that ultimately led to the collapse of his leadership and his removal from office. Readers gain a clear sense of how power shifted during this period and why Mbeki’s presidency ended as it did.
The book also does a commendable job fleshing out key figures in Mbeki’s life. Nelson Mandela is presented as both mentor and contrast, while Jacob Zuma’s rise is thoughtfully situated within broader party tensions.
That said, the book could have benefited from tighter editing. Some sections feel overly long, and the author’s personal reflections occasionally blur the historical narrative.
Overall, it is a worthwhile but imperfect introduction to Mbeki’s legacy.
The examination of Mbeki’s presidency is balanced and informative. The author highlights his strengths—policy competence, global stature, and commitment to an African Renaissance—while also addressing the political missteps and internal ANC dynamics that ultimately led to the collapse of his leadership and his removal from office. Readers gain a clear sense of how power shifted during this period and why Mbeki’s presidency ended as it did.
The book also does a commendable job fleshing out key figures in Mbeki’s life. Nelson Mandela is presented as both mentor and contrast, while Jacob Zuma’s rise is thoughtfully situated within broader party tensions.
That said, the book could have benefited from tighter editing. Some sections feel overly long, and the author’s personal reflections occasionally blur the historical narrative.
Overall, it is a worthwhile but imperfect introduction to Mbeki’s legacy.
April 20, 2024
Good on detail. A little dry.
June 8, 2014
This book taught me a lot about apartheid and Thabo Mbeki, whose name, I’m embarrassed to admit, didn’t mean anything to me until I tackled this. I’ve always been interested in the Russian Revolution, but this biography actually gave the best psychological picture of a revolutionary that I’ve ever read.
One passage I underlined, about Mbeki’s childhood as the scion of African National Congress leader Govan Mbeki:
“The Mbeki children were brought up to understand, from a very early age, that it was the ‘system’ that was the villain and not their father, and to believe that it they had lost their father to the struggle, this was liberating their people, and thus themselves. But even if their diffidence and discipline prohibited them from articulating it, the acceptance of such an explanation could not have come without emotional cost. Robyn Slovo, the youngest daughter of South African freedom fighters Joe Slovo and Ruth First, has spoken about how she experienced something similar: to express fear or to ask “What about me?” was not only ‘extremely weak’ but actually ‘injurious’ to her parents, because it weakened their commitment to struggle by forcing them to pay attention to their own children. Her own pain had ‘no validity …. There are always others worse off than you are.’
“The Mbeki children were not only taught the same thing, but they witnessed it daily, by living amid the poverty of the amaqaba in Mbewuleni. The pain of the family breakup remained invalidated; so many other children were far worse off. What do you do with your own pain if you are not permitted to articulate it?”
One passage I underlined, about Mbeki’s childhood as the scion of African National Congress leader Govan Mbeki:
“The Mbeki children were brought up to understand, from a very early age, that it was the ‘system’ that was the villain and not their father, and to believe that it they had lost their father to the struggle, this was liberating their people, and thus themselves. But even if their diffidence and discipline prohibited them from articulating it, the acceptance of such an explanation could not have come without emotional cost. Robyn Slovo, the youngest daughter of South African freedom fighters Joe Slovo and Ruth First, has spoken about how she experienced something similar: to express fear or to ask “What about me?” was not only ‘extremely weak’ but actually ‘injurious’ to her parents, because it weakened their commitment to struggle by forcing them to pay attention to their own children. Her own pain had ‘no validity …. There are always others worse off than you are.’
“The Mbeki children were not only taught the same thing, but they witnessed it daily, by living amid the poverty of the amaqaba in Mbewuleni. The pain of the family breakup remained invalidated; so many other children were far worse off. What do you do with your own pain if you are not permitted to articulate it?”
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews