Excerpt from former New York Times Johannesburg correspondent Suzanne Daley’s review of Mark Gevisser’s book of the former South African President, “A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream”:

[Here is] the description of the funeral of Mbeki’s father in 2001. Govan Mbeki, who had been more activist than parent, insisted that he be buried in a dilapidated, litter-strewn local cemetery near Port Elizabeth. This produced, as Govan must clearly have understood it would, a painful tableau for his son, the president who had not succeeded in lifting most of his countrymen out of poverty. “There was something festive and celebratory in the air — not just that Govan Mbeki truly was a local hero in these neglected quarters, but that the carnival of power had come to town — and most onlookers cheered for the dignitaries they recognized,” Gevisser writes. “Some, however, made no bones about their feelings. ‘Look at your fancy cars!’ one woman yelled to a prominent black businessman as he alighted from his BMW.”