READING MBEKI’S LETTERS

At the end of April 2008, the then South African President Thabo Mbeki sent a letter to US president Bush vehemently critiquing his stance on Zimbabwe (the story story broke and caused a furor in the press in May 2008).

Often described as aloof, stoic, inaccessible in person, Mbeki was most comfortable and outspoken on the page. A prolific letter writer, he his weekly Friday missive to the nation frequently combined political commentary with academic analysis, passages of internal monologue, literary gestures and wry political ploys.

Reading Mbeki’s letters: we read Mbeki’s weekly “letter to the Nation” as a historical archive, political treatise, an autobiography and an epic epistolary novel, a fragmented book that offers rare insights into a man, a country, a continent.

The online archive of his letters spans the almost 10 years of his Presidency, from 2003 to 2007.