Zuma: A Biography

Front Cover
Jonathan Ball, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 324 pages
"Why should anyone write about me? I'm not an important person. I'm not a rich businessman. I'm not from a politically famous or royal family." Jacob Zuma as told to biographer Jeremy Gordin. But of course Zuma has been at the epicentre of South African politics, and his life has spilt almost daily onto the pages of South Africa's newspapers. Often embattled, always controversial, Zuma rose to take control of the ANC in Polokwane last year, unseating President Thabo Mbeki. Now, he appears destined to become the next president of South Africa. In this unauthorised biography, veteran journalist Jeremy Gordin takes the reader beyond the daily and weekly reporting to capture something of the man: his ambitions; the political roller-coaster on which he has been riding and his travails in his quest to become the next president of South Africa. In addition, award-winning writer Gordin covers Zuma's early life as a herd boy, his adult life as a mem-ber of the ANC, his incarceration on Robben Island, his time in exile, and the transitional years of the early 1990s. But the main focus of the story remains the recent past Zuma's alleged corruption in the Arms Deal, his trial for rape, and his rise to power.

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Contents

CHAPTER
10
CHAPTER 4
24
CHAPTER 5
44
Copyright

14 other sections not shown

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About the author (2008)

Jeremy Gordin, formerly associate editor of The Sunday Independent, runs the Justice Project at the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Journalism. Born in Pretoria in 1952 and educated at the Hebrew Uni-versity of Jerusalem and Unisa, he has been a journalist since 1976. Gordin has written three volumes of poetry and co-authored two non-fiction works. In 2007 he was the Mondi Shanduka Journalist of the Year. He is married to Deborah Blake; they have two children, Jake and Nina.