Penguin to publish her own account of how the one-time apartheid-supporting Afrikaner had 'her life and everything she once believed in transformed by the greatest man of her time'
Zelda la Grange walks hand-in-hand with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 2007. Photograph: Oryx Media Archive/Gallo Images
Zelda la Grange, Nelson Mandela's private secretary and "honorary granddaughter", is to publish a memoir of how she "had her life and everything she once believed in transformed by the greatest man of her time".
The book, Good Morning, Mr Mandela, has just been acquired by Penguin and will be published around the world on 19 June. It's a hot property at this week's London Book Fair, where international rights are selling fast – agent Jonny Geller accepted an offer from France this weekend. It will tell the story of la Grange's life, from how she grew up in South Africa as a white Afrikaner who supported the rules of segregation, to how, a few years after the end of apartheid, she would become Mandela's assistant.
Editor Helen Conford said that it was "a book that will touch your life and make you believe that every one of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, has the power to change. It has brought tears to the eyes of everyone who has read it. It shines with honesty and love. The lessons Nelson Mandela gave her as he renewed his country offer hope to everyone."
Geller said Good Morning, Mr Mandela, which la Grange is writing herself, was "a very genuine and heartfelt book that I think will make people see Madiba as a man in a different light".
"She really was completely devoted to the job," he added. "As people from Bono to Bill Clinton will testify, she was the gateway to the man, and that was a 24-hour job. But in the last year, she started to think that all her extraordinary experiences were worth putting down. [And] she's a natural writer."
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The book, Good Morning, Mr Mandela, has just been acquired by Penguin and will be published around the world on 19 June. It's a hot property at this week's London Book Fair, where international rights are selling fast – agent Jonny Geller accepted an offer from France this weekend. It will tell the story of la Grange's life, from how she grew up in South Africa as a white Afrikaner who supported the rules of segregation, to how, a few years after the end of apartheid, she would become Mandela's assistant.
Editor Helen Conford said that it was "a book that will touch your life and make you believe that every one of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, has the power to change. It has brought tears to the eyes of everyone who has read it. It shines with honesty and love. The lessons Nelson Mandela gave her as he renewed his country offer hope to everyone."
Geller said Good Morning, Mr Mandela, which la Grange is writing herself, was "a very genuine and heartfelt book that I think will make people see Madiba as a man in a different light".
"She really was completely devoted to the job," he added. "As people from Bono to Bill Clinton will testify, she was the gateway to the man, and that was a 24-hour job. But in the last year, she started to think that all her extraordinary experiences were worth putting down. [And] she's a natural writer."
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