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The Meaning of Mandela: A Literary and Intellectual Celebration; edited by Xolela Mangcu. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council, 2006, 64 pp. ISBN 0-7969-2164-4.
This is a little book of three speeches made to commemorate Nelson Mandela's 87th birthday, and they are a quirky though somewhat brilliantly human bunch. In a sense, they are the reminiscences of three forbears of black pride and thought, paying respect to their own forbear - except that Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s respect is directed even more towards WEB Du Bois and, to a certain extent, towards himself for the struggle he endured to actualise Du Bois' vision of what became the Encyclopedia Africana. This is a natural byproduct of the great and old reminiscing - they tell the tale and they are in the tale. They would not want me to put it like this, but it is endearing.
And it is also indeed quirky - except that, in...