Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred

“Probably the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid.” 

 - Martin Plaut, Times Literary Supplement

Now in its fourth edition, Mark’s 2007 biography of Thabo Mbeki has become a South African classic. The book has also been published internationally as A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream. 

The latest edition, published in 2022, has an updated introduction and epilogue, and asks the question: “Was the ANC ‘captured’ by corrupt outsiders who ejected Thabo Mbeki from power and destroyed his legacy? Or is Mbeki himself an author of the misfortune that befell South Africa following his dismissal: not just by facilitating Zuma's rise to power, but by presiding over an earlier era of patronage and putting into place a particular set of policies and practices that set the scene for what would follow?”

Mark sees Mbeki’s spectacular fall from office as a consequence of the “disconnect” that has characterised his entire life. But he also charts the “redemptive fifth act” of Mbeki’s public life, starting with the moment he was cheered at Nelson Mandela’s funeral at the same time that Jacob Zuma was booed, in 2013. Always a polarising figure, Mbeki remains championed by many South Africans nostalgic about his leadership: Gevisser examines why.

“What happens to a dream deferred?” Mbeki often asks, paraphrasing one of his favourite poems by Langston Hughes. After his 2008 ousting, his own dreams seem to have been shattered. In telling the story of one of South Africa’s most compelling, perplexing, and powerful figures - and the extraordinary family from which he comes - Gevisser has given us one off the finest narratives ever written about South Africans conflict-ridden past, its transition to democracy, and its current difficulties.

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Reviews

  • Martin Plaut, Times Literary Supplement

    "probably the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid”

  • Andre Brink, Daily Telegraph

    “A Legacy of Liberation is memorable and definitive. Accompanying Mbeki on his life journey, Gevisser is both informative and moving, passionate and dispassionate... Obviously we cannot be brought to pardon or sympathise with Mbeki's estrangement from Mandela and his stance on Aids or on Zimbabwe, but Gevisser helps us to understand where they come from, and how – and why – he has developed such seemingly monstrous attitudes...Few books in recent years have managed to bring the reader to such a deep and disquieting understanding of Paton's ‘beloved country'.”

  • Chris McGreal, The Observer

    “The best [of four new books about South Africa], Mark Gevisser's A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream seeks to understand how a man who came to power with so much goodwill behind him is today regarded with hostility... Gevisser carefully listens to his subject and those around him before artfully dissecting his thinking.”

  • The Economist

    “…essential reading for anyone intrigued by South Africa's complex philosopher-king.”

  • Suzanne Daley, New York Times Book Review

    “An impressive feat of journalism...Gevisser writes well, particularly when he is witness to an event, when his narrative leaps off the page…offers some intriguing insights.”

  • Matthew Kaminski, The Wall Street Journal

    “An epic biography”

  • The Nation

    “Gevisser, calling on a vast amount of research, is able to assemble a compelling explanation of this most impenetrable persona.”