The Rainbow People of God: South Africa’s Victory over Apartheid, by Desmond Tutu (used hardcover)

For many years, while Nelson Mandela was in prison, Desmond Tutu was the focus of hope for racial justice in South Africa. The Rainbow People of God is an important and especially timely book which enables us to appreciate the extent to which his persistent voice of reason, compassion and faith contributed towards the struggle to end apartheid during those dark years. In this collection of his key speeches, letters and sermons we relive, through his eyes, the historical highlights during this time from 1976, when apartheid was at its peak, to the birth of democracy in the 1994 elections.

The first entry is Archbishop Tutu's emotional letter as a young priest to South Africa's Prime Minister Vorster in 1976, pleading with him, as a grandfather who loves his grandchildren, to take pity on black South Africans and dismantle the injustice of apartheid. The second is his moving sermon at the grave of Steve Biko, and so on over the years, until we share with him the extraordinary sense of national euphoria felt upon the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, tempered only by the subsequent confusion and violence of the transition to democracy. The entries are linked to one another and set into historical context by an engaging and informative narrative written by John Allen, an award-winning South African journalist.

The Rainbow People of God serves as a powerful reminder of the social and political upheaval in South Africa in recent years. It also highlights the courage, passion and dedication of one man driven by his own faith and sense of justice to overcome one of this century's greatest abuses of human rights.