Conversations with Myself

Nelson Mandela was a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. He was born in Transkei, South Africa, in 1918. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. In 1964, he was convicted of crimes including sabotage committed in the struggle against apartheid. He was imprisoned for 27 years at Robben Island prison and Pollsmoor prison. During his incarceration, his reputation as a potent symbol of resistance to apartheid grew steadily. Released from prison in 1990, Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was inaugurated as President of South Africa in 1994. He is the author of the internationally bestselling autobiography Long Walk to Freedom and Conversations with Myself, a collection of his personal papers. Mandela died in December 2013.

John Kani is a South African actor, director, and playwright famous for both his writing and his dramatic performance. He won a Fleur du Cap Award for Nothing But the Truth, a play about the post-apartheid rift between those who had stayed in South Africa during the apartheid and those who returned only once it had ended. That same year, he was awarded an Obie for his extraordinary contributions to theater in the US. He has starred onstage in My Children My Africa! and The Tempest, and can be seen on screen in a variety of television shows and movies, such as Othello, An African Dream, Soweto Green, and Endgame. He narrated Conversations With Myself by Nelson Mandela.