Rolling in the Deep: The evolving tragedy and triumphs of being a Mandela

On the day Zoleka Mandela died, aged 43, after a long struggle with cancer, William Nicol Drive in Johannesburg was renamed Winnie Mandela Drive, after her grandmother.

By some cosmic coincidence, the name of the once deputy chair of the mighty Afrikaner Broederbond was wiped out, to be replaced by a woman inexorably shaped and bullied by this country’s history.

There she is, remember her.

It was the 12-month-old Zoleka, daughter of Zindzi, whom Winnie smuggled into Robben Island maximum security prison in 1981 so she could be held by her grandfather, Nelson, who had not seen an infant or a child in the 18 years he had spent there. He was to spend nine more years in captivity.

Zoleka also passed through, in her short life, mighty rings of soul fire to find a semblance of wholeness, including the tragic death of two of her children; alcohol, drug and childhood sexual abuse; a string of failed relationships; and a tenacious cancer.

She bore her burdens with dignity and honesty right until the end – a warrior.

She grasped at happiness in those moments she was pain-free and ensconced with the surviving six of her eight children. The youngest, Zingce, was born in April 2022, a day before her mother’s 42nd birthday.

In 2010 Zoleka’s 13-year-old daughter Zenani died in a gruesome drunk-driving collision en route from a Fifa World Cup kick-off concert. She never forgave herself for a loss that cut her deeply. It also devastated the frail Mandela, who attended the funeral.

His advice to his granddaughter was to find strength as she was not the only one who had lost a child to a tragic accident. In July 1969, Mandela’s eldest son, Thembekile, aged 35, was killed in a fatal car crash in Touws River in the Western Cape.

Mandela, incarcerated on the island, was not allowed to attend his funeral.

Zoleka later fully accepted responsibility, noting that when Zenani died she had been in rehab, her life and spirit crushed. Her choice at the time of drugs over her daughter haunted her.

The death of her baby son, Zenawe, in 2011 from an infection he had contracted in utero was another blow to the young mother.

Her 2013 biography, When Hope Whispers (Jacana), is a searing account of the devastating impact of the politics of resistance in the family on her personal life and her state of mind.

Shaped by South Africa

First family, warts and all