A biography of Nelson Mandela, civil rights activist, political prisoner, and president of South Africa, told in the context of his country's modern history.
Tells the story of eleven-year-old Manus, a young white boy in 1970s South Africa, whose illusions about his happy family are shattered by the arrival of a stranger, interwoven with entries by Manus as an adult, fighting another country's war.
Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from his home by war in Sierra Leone and picked up by the government army at the age of thirteen, serving as a soldier for three years before being removed from fighting by UNICEF and eventually moving to the United States.
In their own words, a variety of teenagers from South Africa talk about their years growing up under apartheid, and about the changes now occurring in their country.