The Mark Gevisser collection comprises the material collected during research done for Mark Gevisser’s biography of Thabo Mbeki entitled The Dream Deferred (2007). The material mainly consists of secondary research sources in the forms of newspaper clippings, journal articles, book extracts, public and internal ANC documents (such as press statements, minutes of meetings and correspondence), Mbeki’s own writing (speeches and articles) and Gevisser’s notebooks. The collection further includes audio cassettes of interviews conducted, for the most part, by Mark Gevisser with family, friends and colleagues of Thabo Mbeki.

The Mbeki biography starts with an exploration of the familial roots of the ‘non-traditional’ Moeranes and Mbekis; the meeting and coming of political awareness of Mbeki’s parents Epainette Moerane and Govan Mbeki in 1930s Durban; their move to the rural Mbewuleni in the Transkei, Thabo Mbeki’s birthplace and Mbeki’s childhood and schooling in Mbewuleni, Queenstown and Alice (Lovedale) during the years missionary schools were transferred to state schools under Bantu education. The following part explores Mbeki’s move to Johannesburg in 1960 to study for his A levels through Sached in order to do a British degree; his joining of the SACP and his departure into exile in 1962 to study economics at the Sussex University. The next part covers the period from 1962 to 1971 when Thabo Mbeki studied in Britain, against the backdrop of the Rivonia trial and imprisonment of the ANC high command back home, and later at the Lenin Institute in Moscow; Thabo Mbeki’s involvement with the international anti-apartheid and anti-racialist movements as well as youth groups YSS and SASA and his relationship to the ‘new’, anti-Soviet left. The following section tracks Thabo Mbeki’s return to Africa in 1971; his marriage to Zanele in 1974; his time spent working in Zambia, Swaziland and Nigeria in the ANC’s ‘Revolutionary Council’ as well as the ANC’s relationship with the IFP, and the disintegration of the Mbekis’ familial bonds. The final three sections look at the period of negotiations from 1978 to 1994, Thabo Mbeki and other exiles’ return home from 1990 and lastly the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies from 1994 onwards. The chapters on negotiations explore Mbeki’s role in turning the ANC’s public image around in the 1980s whilst overseeing the Department of Information and Publicity, and in securing a negotiated settlement. The final part focuses on Mbeki’s relationship with Mandela and the manner in which he handled debates about the economy, the arms deal, racial reconciliation and the AIDS crisis.