Choice Not Fate The Life and Times of Trevor Manuel

Trevor Manuel became South Africa's first black finance minister in 1996, a time when the economy threatened to spiral into a debt trap. It took five years before Manuel could present his first 'good news' Budget in Parliament. He described that Budget as a tale of 'irrevocable and powerful transformation', a tale of 'patience and obstinacy ... of determination and hope ... Of choice, not fate.' He could have been telling the tale of his own life. Born into a working-class family on the Cape Fla