大象传媒

Nelson Mandela wrote a letter every day of his life. He also wrote diaries, kept notebooks, scratched out ideas for speeches and doodled his thoughts and meditations on scraps of paper. This unique archive, which was bequeathed to the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 2009 and subsequently became the focus of a worldwide bidding war, has now been published as a book. For this two-part documentary, the 大象传媒's Fergal Keane journeys back through the landmark moments in Mandela's life and career, as well as reflecting on less known events.

Listen to diary excerpts written on the night of Mandela's release from Pollsmoor in February 1990, and hear drafts of his very early speeches as leader of the ANC.

There is a letter discussing the role of police in society, set down on notepaper emblazoned with the cartoon cat Garfield, which ends: 'Let's not leave this meeting showing it's a failure.'

We hear him chiding himself over a 'grave error of judgement' when he proposed lowering the voting age to 14. And we hear extracts from letters and diaries written during his years in retirement as he observes the ongoing political struggles of South Africa.

(Image: Nelson Mandela reads from a manuscript, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)