Tomorrow is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Road to Change

Between 1985 and 1988, Nelson Mandela, then a political prisoner, had secret meetings with South Africa's minister of justice, Hendrik Coetsee, to prepare for Mandela's eventual release. This is one of many revelations in South African journalist Sparks's momentous chronicle. He also details clandestine talks, from 1987 to 1990, between members of Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) and top leaders of the Broederbond, the primary think tank of the Afrikaner nationalist movement and an architect of apartheid. At these meetings, plans for a national coalition government were hammered out, as the Broederbond sought to come to terms with the country's black majority without losing political control. The author documents former president F.W. de Klerk's efforts to undermine Mandela after his release from prison in 1990 by building an anti-ANC alliance around Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha party. He presents compelling evidence that the government secretly funded Inkatha and sowed violence aimed at derailing the transition. Sparks remains optimistic that a multiracial, multiparty democracy will emerge and predicts that South Africa will become an engine of salvation for the whole continent. (Feb.)