title: A Prisoner in the Garden
author: The Nelson Mandela Foundation
description: <i>Starred Review.</i> One of Nelson Mandela's goals for his eponymous Centre of Memory and Commemoration is "to locate and documentand facilitate public access tothe many archives that contain traces of my life and those who lived it with me." <i>Archives</i> is a dusty word, but Mandela's Prison Archive, selections of which are reproduced in this beautiful volume, is a vibrant, moving affair. Used in its broadest sense here, the word includes "sites, landscapes, material objects, performances, photographs, artworks, stories and the memories of individuals." The all-embracing scope means that this book records not only official documents and personal papers but also the stories of people "who have simply felt their lives touched by him." With brevity and clarity, the foundation writers sketch Mandela's prison experience, his personal life and his political and philosophical thought. The testy challenge of balancing intimate knowledge against the rights of relatives and friends is met with candor ("voyeurism," one of the writers observes, "is the eternal temptation of archivists"). With this handsome illustrated book, the center advances another of Mandela's goals: "to unravel the many silences imposed by our apartheid and colonial pasts, to find space for the memories suppressed by power." <i>(Jan.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  _This poem was written_
  
  
  
  
  
  _on behalf of the American people_
  
  
  
  
  
  _on the occasion of the death of_
  
  
  
  
  
  _Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013_ ,
  
  
  
  
  
  _at the request of the U.S. Department of State_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../Images/Ange_9780812997026_epub_001_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [(photo credit col2.1)](../Text/Ange_9780812997026_epub_bm1_r1.htm#fig1a)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../Images/Ange_9780812997026_epub_tp_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2014 by Maya Angelou
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of
  Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
  
  
  
  
  
  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House
  LLC.
  
  
  
  
  
  Photograph credits are located on [this
  page](../Text/Ange_9780812997026_epub_bm1_r1.htm#page45).
  
  
  
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA  
  
  
  Angelou, Maya.  
  
  
  His day is done : a Nelson Mandel