Showing results by author "Jonny Steinberg" in All Categories

One of the most celebrated political leaders of a century, Nelson Mandela has been written about by many biographers and historians. But in one crucial area, his life remains largely untold: his marriage to Winnie. During his years in prison, Nelson grew ever more in love with an idealized version of his wife, courting her in his letters as if they were young lovers frozen in time. But Winnie, every bit his political equal, found herself increasingly estranged from her jailed husband’s politics.

In the spring of 1999, in the beautiful hills of the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, a young white farmer was shot dead on the dirt road running from his father's farmhouse to his irrigation fields. The murder was the work of assassins rather than robbers; a single shot behind the ear, nothing but his gun stolen, no forensic evidence like cartridges or fingerprints left at the scene. Journalist Jonny Steinberg travelled to the midlands to investigate. Local black workers said the young white man had it coming. 

Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a sceptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. By the time he had reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had honed an array of wily talents. At the age of 17, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, he made good as a street hustler. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya and, to the astonishment of his peers, married her.

On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent over 50 hours discussing his life experiences. The Number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg's journeys to the places and people of Wentzel's past.

At the end of a steep gravel road in one of the remotest corners of Lusikisiki in the old Transkei lies the village of Ithanga. Home to a few hundred villagers, the majority of them unemployed, it is inconceivably poor. In the broader world, most would consider it entirely inconsequential. It is to here that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg travels to explore the lives of a community caught up in a battle to survive the ravages of HIV/AIDS.