商品簡介
London, 1945: the heir apparent to the kingship of Bechuanaland (later Botswana) arrives in Britain to complete his legal studies. Seretse Khama, an urbane 24-year-old, educated like Mandela at Fort Hare, is welcomed into the elite world of the Inner Temple in London. But then, in 1947, he does something that will change the course of his life, and that of his country, forcing him into to six long years of exile: he falls in love with a white British woman, Ruth Williams.
Drawing on a mass of previously classified records, Susan Williams tells Seretse and Ruth's story - an astonishing account of how the British Government conspired with apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia to prevent the mixed-race royal couple returning home. This is a shocking account of a shameful period in British history: of overt racism on the streets of London and the corridors of Whitehall, and of appeasement to apartheid South Africa. But it is also an inspiring, triumphant tale of hope, courage and true love, as with tenacity and great dignity Seretse and Ruth and the Bangwato people overcome prejudice in their fight for justice.
作者簡介
Susan Williams is an historian and author of many books, most recently Spies in the Congo. The Race for the Ore that Built the Atomic Bomb (2016) and Who Killed Hammarskjold? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa (2011), which triggered a new UN investigation in 2015 into the death of the Secretary General. She grew up in Zambia and has worked in Britain, Zimbabwe and Canada. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.