Voices of liberation: Samora Machel: leader and liberator in Southern Africa

Abstract

This Voices of Liberation: Samora Machel presents the story of Machel’s rise in the liberation movement, and his successes and failures as president of Mozambique. It does so through a biographical introduction, selected translated extracts from both formal and improvised speeches, and interviews. Machel was not a theoretician and wrote little. Nevertheless, he was a compelling orator with a command of multiple registers of Portuguese, and we hear his voice distinctly through his many speeches, and in his interviews. This is the story of an authentic African hero, a man with a vision of a more just society, who died in the service of the liberation of his people.