Nelson Mandela, reading his new picture-book autobiography with his great-grandson, Ziyanda Manaway. Photo: DebbieYazbek/Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Back in the 1980s, Nelson Mandela was front and center on the world stage. Now, Macmillan aims to see history repeat itself, thanks to a global, 13-language launch of the picture-book adaptation of his autobiography.

The company’s unprecedented release of Long Walk to Freedom "was intended to reflect Nelson Mandela’s importance to South Africa and the world," says Emma Hopkin, managing director of Macmillan Children’s Books in the U.K. This ambitious effort involved intense collaboration between Macmillan U.K., Pan Macmillan South Africa, and Roaring Brook in the U.S., also part of the worldwide Macmillan family, which adapted the text and cover art for an American audience.

Normally, Pan Macmillan South Africa only sells titles that have originated elsewhere in the company. But about six years ago,Dusanka Stojakovic (then managing director of Pan Macmillan South Africa) and Terry Morris (then sales director) took the initiative of proposing to the Mandela Foundation a picture book adaptation of Mandela’s 1995 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. (Macmillan had already obtained rights to adapt the book from Little, Brown.) With the Foundation’s blessing, the South African contingent turned to Macmillan U.K. for its editorial and production expertise, although Pan Macmillan remained in charge of obtaining nearly a dozen South African translations.

Those numerous and simultaneous translations were, in fact, an essential part of the deal for the Foundation and Little, Brown. Although English is South Africa’s lingua franca, it is actually the first language of only a small minority of the country’s children. Hopkin explains that "because of Nelson Mandela’s importance to South Africa, the goal was that every South African child would have the opportunity to read this book." To achieve this end, Macmillan printed Long Walk to Freedom not only in Afrikaans, but in isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho and the rest of South Africa’s 11 official languages.

Lara Cohen, sales and marketing manager at Pan Macmillan, explains an additional effort to widen the audience. "Although we published the English edition in hardback," she says, "the other languages are in paperback because we wanted to bring the price down, to make sure it was accessible to schools with limited budgets and to anyone just walking into a bookshop off the street."

Another priority was using indigenous talent for retelling this distinctly South African story. Because Mandela’s original book was a hefty 656 pages, any adaptation would have to be completely rethought for a young audience. South African author Chris Van Wyk whittled it down to a more approachable 64 pages, and another native, Paddy Bouma, provided child-friendly illustrations.


Schoolchildren in Johannesburg, reading their copies of Long Walk to Freedom.

At the Johannesburg launch for the book, Van Wyk spoke and signed copies that were given to 100 happily surprised students, 10 each from 10 underprivileged schools. Each of these schools also received two copies of Long Walk to Freedom, one in English and one in their home language, for their libraries.

For some attendees, though, the real highlight of the day was when eight-year-old Ziyanda Manaway read an especially apropos message from his great-grandfather, Nelson Mandela: "The system of apartheid robbed many children of their right to a decent education and of the joy of reading. This joy is one that I have treasured all my life, and it is one I wish for all South Africans." Publishing Long Walk to Freedom so inclusively just might be a step in that direction.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, abridged by Chris Van Wyk, illustrated by Paddy Bouma. Roaring Brook/Flash Point, $16.99 Sept. ISBN 978-1-5964-3566-7