Nelson Mandela prison letters reveal pain of separation from his family

As his child was buried, Nelson Mandela was sleeping on a straw mat in a tiny concrete cell on Robben Island, consoling himself by reading the Bible.

It was 1969 and the freedom fighter had been refused permission to attend the funeral of his son Thembi, who died in a car accident aged 24. 

According to newly released personal letters it was perhaps the lowest moment of Mr Mandela’s 27-year incarceration.

"Thembi’s death was a painful experience to all of us," Mr Mandela wrote to a relative several months later. "This was particularly so for me, especially when one takes into account the fact that I had not seen him for 5 years, and that my application for permission to attend the funeral was not granted. I will never forget Thembi."

More than 250 of Mr Mandela’s prison letters, most of them never seen publicly before, are due to be published later this month, marking the centenary of his birth on July 18, 2018.

Some of them were unveiled in advance by the New York Times, and offered a window into the emotional struggles South Africa’s first black president underwent during his captivity.

When Mr Mandela was imprisoned in 1962 he was 44, and a father of five young children. His letters reveal the deep pain he felt at missing not only his son’s funeral, but birthdays and major events in his children’s lives.

Many of the letters he wrote to them, professing his love, were censored or never reached the recipients.

In a letter of complaint to officials 12 years into his imprisonment, Mr Mandela wrote: "I sometimes wish science could invent miracles and make my daughter get her missing birthday cards, and have the pleasure of knowing that her Pa loves her, thinks of her, and makes efforts to reach her."

In 1969 a letter to his young daughters, Zenani and Zindzi, detailed how looking at a photograph of them kept him going in his damp 8ft by 7ft cell.

"Zindzi says her heart is sore because I am not at home and wants to know when I will come back," he wrote. "I do not know, my darlings, when I will return.

"The white judge said I should stay in jail for the rest of my life. It may be long before I come back; it may be soon. Nobody knows when it will be, not even the judge who said I should be kept here. But I am certain that one day I will be back at home to live in happiness with you until the end of my days."

He added: "Do not worry about me now. I am happy, well and full of strength and hope. The only thing I long for is you, but whenever I feel lonely I look at your photo, which is always in front of me."

Nelson Mandela in pictures

In another letter in 1971, written to Zenani after her 12th birthday, he said: "You will be able to pay me a visit me in 1975 when you will have turned 16. But I am growing impatient and the coming five years seem longer than eternity."

In his letters Mr Mandela’s optimism that the anti-apartheid struggle would ultimately be successful shone through.

Writing to his wife Winnie on April 2, 1969 he told her to read books by an American psychologist about positive thinking.

"Remember that hope is a powerful weapon," he wrote. "You are in my thoughts every moment of my life. Nothing will happen to you darling. You will certainly recover and rise."

A few years later he wrote to his wife: "We should by now have been hunchbacked, unsteady on our feet, and with faces full of gloom and utter despair.

"Yet my entire body throbs with life and is full of expectations. Our cause is just. It is a fight for human dignity and for an honourable life."