Editor's note: "God bless Elijah/with the feather in his hand"

AS THIS ISSUE OF THE JAAR was in its final stages of preparation, we learned of the death of Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013. My university’s Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, issued a simple one-line statement, echoing Cleopatra’s words on the death of Antony in Antony and
Cleopatra: “The soul of Africa has departed, and there is nothing miraculous left in the world.” Another African Nobel Laureate, John Coetzee, ended his obituary for Mandela with the line: “He was, and by the time of his death was universally held to be, a great man; he may well be the last
of the great men, as the concept of greatness retires into the historical shadows.” For this issue, South African scholar Ebrahim Moosa and Canadian human rights leader Derek Evans have both provided us with their remembrances of Madiba.