491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s book now on shelves

A few hours before dawn on 12 May 1969, security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Mandela and detained her in the presence of her two young daughters, then aged nine and 10.

Rounded up with a group of other anti-apartheid activists under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, she was taken away.

For Winnie Mandela this was the start of a 491-day period of detention and two trials.

In her book, published by Pan Macmillan and co-edited by Sahm Venter of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Swati Dlamini, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela shares extracts from her 491-day prison journal, as well as snippets of correspondence between herself and affected parties at the time, including Nelson Mandela, who by then had been in prison for nearly seven years.