Chris Hani’s warnings to the liberation movement have acquired a fresh political edge as South Africa prepares for local government elections on Wednesday, 4 November 2026. A new biography of the slain leader invites readers to weigh his legacy against the conduct of the institutions he once served.
The book, Chris Hani: A Life of Courage and Compassion, is a 285-page Penguin non-fiction edition written by the acclaimed South African novelist, playwright, poet and painter Zakes Mda. It arrives at a moment when the African National Congress is campaigning under mounting electoral pressure, and when Luthuli House has recently secured a Constitutional Court ruling in its dispute with the electoral authorities over the registration of 281 candidates. Against that backdrop, Hani’s long-standing warnings about corruption, political complacency and the responsibilities of the liberation movement resonate with renewed urgency.
Hani, a celebrated anti-apartheid struggle veteran, communist leader and military commander, was assassinated on 10 April 1993, an event that shook South Africa and changed the course of the country’s transition to democracy. Mda draws on research and interviews with Hani’s family, comrades-in-arms and political contemporaries to look beyond the revolutionary icon, revealing the son, husband, father, intellectual, mentor and friend behind the public figure.
The accountability questions the book raises are hard to avoid. Reading Hani’s political legacy against today’s electoral climate invites a difficult question: what would the outspoken commander make of the state of the organisation for which he sacrificed so much? One can almost imagine his familiar challenge to the leadership and rank and file. The warnings were there, so why were they not heeded?
The volume carries an extraordinarily substantial foreword, dated Cape Town, 27 April 2026, by the renowned activist and leader Albie Sachs, who reflects on Hani’s place in the ANC and the extraordinary affection he inspired. Sachs writes that Hani was “most loved”, recalling his “radiant physical and moral courage and sheer joy of being”. He says he was “deeply honoured” when the family invited him to write about Hani’s life and times. Although Nelson Mandela occupied the unrivalled position of the nation’s most revered political leader, Hani commanded admiration among many South Africans for his fearlessness, revolutionary conviction and identification with the struggles of people.
Mda’s account traces the full arc of a political life: Hani’s rural childhood in Cofimvaba, his political awakening, the Wankie Campaign, his underground operations and his challenges to the ANC leadership. At its heart is his commitment to social justice. The narrative moves from his childhood and formation as a freedom fighter into the years of exile, political work and armed struggle, following a man who moved between the “front” and “rear” of the liberation struggle, the armed conflict and the political labour, loyalties and disagreements that sustained the broader movement.
That wider view also encompasses the personal costs. Hani’s wife, Limpho, endured apartheid’s brutality and propaganda while her husband fought from exile. At one point, Pik Botha, South Africa’s controversial hardline foreign affairs minister, claimed that Limpho had been killed. Joe Slovo, a senior ANC commissar, immediately rejected the report, saying: “It’s a lie. Mrs Hani is with me in Mozambique.” The episode captures the danger and uncertainty that surrounded the Hani family even far from the frontlines. Their life together was shaped by separation, danger and the unusual geography of exile, with the family living between Maseru and Moscow before settling in Boksburg in the 1990s.
The later chapters carry painful momentum. In a chapter titled The Janus Factor, Mda examines the killing by Janus Waluzś, a foreign supporter of apartheid, and the long-running attempts to secure parole for the assassin. These events raise difficult questions about justice, memory and the unfinished work of reckoning with apartheid. Mda places the murder in a country marked by political violence, death squads, Afrikaner nationalism, opposition and threats as South Africa moved towards democracy.
Mda’s own background lends the work particular attentiveness. He spent part of his childhood in Soweto, a centre of resistance to racism and discriminatory laws, and completed his schooling in Maseru, Lesotho, which served as a base for political leaders and exiles. He is known for novels including Ways of Dying, The Heart of Redness, Little Suns and The Zulus of New York.
The book’s research gives the narrative depth, while its attention to Hani’s relationships keeps the history immediate and personal. The edition makes a striking visual statement through its front cover photograph of Hani in a grey suit and matching tie, alongside Limpho in a cream dress, and is presented without a photographic centrefold, keeping the focus on the research, testimony and written record.
Hani’s journey ended in Boksburg, where the family was living together for the first time. His assassination changed the course of a country approaching democracy and left a lasting mark on South African public life. Mda’s biography is more than the story of a fallen revolutionary. It is an invitation to revisit the ideals, internal struggles and unfinished promises of South Africa’s liberation history, and to consider their relevance to the country’s democratic future. It reminds readers why Hani’s bravery, humanity and clarity of purpose continue to matter.