The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation

By Justice Malala

‘Superbly reported, compelling . . . wonderfully captures the spirit of that time’ Financial Times

'Gripping and important' Observer
__________________________________________________________________________
Nine days that set the course of a nation...

Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela has been free for three years and is in slow-moving power-sharing talks with President FW de Klerk when a white supremacist shoots Mandela’s popular young heir apparent, Chris Hani, in the hope of igniting an all-out civil war. Will he succeed in plunging South Africa into chaos, safeguarding apartheid for perhaps years to come? Or can Mandela and de Klerk overcome their differences and mutual suspicion and calm their followers, plotting a way forward?

In The Plot to Save South Africa, acclaimed South African journalist Justice Malala recounts the riveting story of the next nine days – never before told in full – revealing rarely seen sides of both Mandela and de Klerk, the fascinating behind-the-scenes debates within each of their parties over whether to pursue peace or war, and their increasingly desperate attempts to restrain their supporters despite mounting popular frustrations.

Flitting between the points of view of over a dozen characters on all sides of the conflict, Justice Malala offers an illuminating look at successful leadership in action… and a terrifying reminder of just how close a country we think of today as a model for racial reconciliation came to civil war.
__________________________________________________________________________

‘A dramatic work of history, prodigiously reported and beautifully crafted. Justice Malala is a first-rate storyteller, deftly weaving history with a narrative that reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down’ Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Ali: A Life

‘Magnificent, furious and unputdownable’ Andrew Harding, BBC Africa correspondent and author of These Are Not Gentle People

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781471194535

Justice Malala

Justice Malala is one of South Africa’s foremost political commentators and the author of the #1 bestseller We Have Now Begun Our Descent: How to Stop South Africa Losing its Way. A longtime weekly columnist for The Times (South Africa), he has also written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Financial Times, among other outlets. The former publisher of The Sowetan and Sunday World, he now lives in New York.

Reviews for The Plot to Save South Africa

[jthierer_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is an important piece of journalism...but I'm not convinced its a good book. I say that because many people who were not alive/too young to pay attention during the fall of apartheid have come to view it as an inevitability where the peaceful transition of power from the white minority to the Black majority was all but assured from the moment Mandela left prison. This book reminds us that the future was not nearly so assured as it seems now in hindsight. But... there were several moments in this book I wish Malala could or would have gone deeper into the moments he catalogues. For example, he pretty heavily foreshadows the murder of the white tourists during this period, but the actual event feels like a bit of an afterthought rather than a key inflection point. By treating all of his moments with the same emphasis we almost wind up glossing over things that are pretty darn important to his story.