Bradley Steyn’s life is a perfect example of how fact can be stranger than fiction, as Undercover with Mandela’s Spies shows. The memoir charts Steyn’s life – from the deeply traumatic experience of witnessing the Strijdom Square massacre in 1988 that leaves him with a severe case of PTSD, to being recruited by the underground ANC’s Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS). Written with sweltering clarity, Steyn details the dark and dangerous world of espionage, guns and the ...
Bradley Steyn’s life is a perfect example of how fact can be stranger than fiction, as Undercover with Mandela’s Spies shows. The memoir charts Steyn’s life – from the deeply traumatic experience of witnessing the Strijdom Square massacre in 1988 that leaves him with a severe case of PTSD, to being recruited by the underground ANC’s Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS). Written with sweltering clarity, Steyn details the dark and dangerous world of espionage, guns and the extremes both the apartheid government and the ANC went to to achieve their goals.This astonishing true-life thriller provides a thorough account of one man’s explosive experiences during a highly unstable period in South Africa’s history and reveals for the first time some of the dirty secrets of a dirty war. Beset with all the makings of a spy blockbuster, Steyn’s every day with the Security Branch included surveillance, psychoactive drugs to weaken targets, war tactics, shootings and death. While navigating this dangerous world, Steyn was also battling PTSD and one can only imagine how the violent nature of this covert world impacted him.He ends up being recruited by MK and used to infiltrate the crazed right-wing whose mission is to de stabilise a South Africa on the brink of peace.With these forces pushing the nation toward a bloody race war, will his time run out before they discover he is working for Mandela’s spies? Undercover with Mandela’s Spies captures the horror of this war for freedom and the resilience of the men and women who fought for our liberation. This book shows just how close to civil war we were.
