Winnie Madikizela-Mandela recounts the 491 days she spent in solitary confinement under South Africa’s apartheid regime in a series of letters collated into this book.

Often wrongfully portrayed as villan or victim, she was arrested in 1969 without trial, she details the psychological and physical toll of state-sanctioned torture, isolation, and abuse. More than a personal diary, the book is a record of resistance, documenting her unwavering political commitment to liberation and the cost of her defiance.

With emotional depth and political insight, the text humanises the struggle against apartheid while exposing the gendered dimensions of political imprisonment. 491 Days offers both historical documentation and intimate witness to the inner life of one of South Africa’s most formidable freedom fighters.

This reference was recommended by the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.

The Collective is a space for critical dialogue, activism, and scholarship that foregrounds Pan-African Indigenist ways of knowing, being, and creating. Formed by members of the Bartlett community dedicated to uplifting the voices, knowledge, and cultural legacies of people of African heritage and their respective Indigenous communities and lands, it aims to challenge colonial legacies and inspire transformation within institutional structures, research and curricula. By integrating creative and scholarly practices, the Collective works to restore narratives that have been silenced or misrepresented. Their work advances decolonial efforts in higher education by creating inclusive spaces and centring diverse African knowledge systems. Bartlett Alternative recognises the Collective’s vital contribution to broadening intellectual and cultural horizons through radical inclusivity and exclusivity, and thanks them for sharing resources that foreground lived experience, land-based knowledge systems, and epistemic justice.

Department Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment