297pp., paperback, Penguin, Cape Town, 2026

ISBN: 9781776393510

Drawing on years of research and extensive interviews with family members, comrades-in-arms and political contemporaries, Zakes Mda offers the most complete portrait yet of one of South Africa’s most admired - and contested – freedom fighters, and reveals why, more than three decades after his death, Hani remains one of South Africa’s most compelling and consequential political figures.

Mda discusses Hani’s childhood in rural Cofimvaba, his political awakening, his battlefield experience in the Wankie Campaign, his challenge to the ANC leadership, his work directing underground operations from Lesotho and elsewhere, his unwavering commitment to justice alongside his deep devotion to family and comrades, the turbulent final years of apartheid, and the aftermath of his assassination on 10 April 1993..

"This is an outstanding book written about an extraordinary figure by one of South Africa's greatest intellectuals." Albie Sachs

Zakes Mda's novels include Ways of Dying (M-Net Book Prize), The Heart of Redness (Commonwealth Writers Prize), Little Suns and Wayfarer's Hymns. His creative work also includes painting, and theatre and film productions. Born in the Eastern Cape in 1948, he spent his early childhood in Soweto and completed his schooling in Lesotho. A recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga, he lives in Athens, Ohio.

CHRIS HANI, a life of courage and compassion, the authorised biography

: Mda (Z.)

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