Afrah Jamal

Thanks to Liberty Books for the review copy Published in Daily Times / Saturday, March 26, 2011 Reviewed by Afrah Jamal Mandela is known for playing two distinct roles in his lifetime. One was as Prisoner 466/64 on the infamous Robben Island (now a UN World Heritage Site); the other was becoming the first president of a democratic South Africa. He received worldwide accolades for making both performances memorable . Since 2009, July 18 has been declared the Nelson Mandela International Day for freedom, justice and democracy . Mandela — described as an “o bsessive record keeper ”, can now add another chapter to his extensive legacy; one that will give the world an opportunity to use his own words as the key to decipher his original message. Conversations with Myself is a compilation of private papers, prison letters, speeches, taped conversations with a fellow prisoner (Ahmed Kathrada), excerpts of interviews given to TIME magazine editor Richard Stengel, and a draft of a...

Thanks to Liberty Books for the review copy Reviewed by: Afrah Jamal Author: Pramod Kapoor Published in Daily Times / 12 March 2011 Margaret Bourke-White came to India to “bear witness to the fall of the British Empire”. Partition was still a year away and her lens, set aglow from its dying embers was trained towards the brewing conflagration that was to set the region ablaze. Margaret, who has been called the “finest woman photographer of her time”, was commissioned by LIFE magazine to cover the “exchange of population”. Pramod Kapoor, founder/publisher Roli Books, came across a selection of historically significant photographs taken by Margaret in Pakistan and India and decided to weave them into a fresh narrative. Witness to Life and Freedom reopens an old chapter adding facets of the freedom struggle seen from a unique vantage point. These, together with previously unpublished images taken over two years (1946-1948), chronicling the death and destruction left in the wa...