Publisher's Synopsis
The Covenant has toured far from the Fictions of Cruelty-which have only a little in common with the stories of Villiers de I'Isle-Adam-or the profoundly moving short pieces marked by an expressive easiness which the French writer Louis Philippe would not have disclaimed; from those chapters of autobiography which reveal a reflective childhood already haunted by strange presentiments, and a inquisitive longing after death, to those essays and poems marked by a thrilling anxiety of restlessness, and filled with conjectural passion. It has been a far cry with it from anguish to serenity, to that interior joy which triumphs over all despair; from early revolt to an acceptance which has never been mere notification, though often it is not far removed from a mood of burning admiration, from a religious sense at one with reason, from faith in the existence of a Principle to be found at the basis of all our Human Destiny. Many phases mark his excursion, and the triumphs he has won are numerous in battles joined on the fields of ethics, morals Values, consciences, integrities principles and aesthetics, in the continuous struggle to accomplish to those territories of thought where the Spirit can find its ultimate well-being, and where love is a sort of tumour that cannot be removed once it has entered ones heart. But this time it is a different kind of tumour, a tumour of LOVE ONE ANOTHER. The Story told in "The Covenant about LongWalk to Freedom" is the last chapter in a route of thought which has moved beyond ordinary literature, but first told by LongWalk Freedom self, of an art which, with its worthy abstemiousness, exemplifies the emotional climate of our times. We often know and often, we seem having answers on how things should be but we are not prepared or willing to take on challenges on our shoulders. LongWalk was one of those who took initiative for things challenging for him, family and friends. From what I wrote as an author then, I derived a very imperfect idea of the extent to which the adventure of LongWalk Freedom was involved in the story of people's figure, i.e. Ubuntu (Ntu, humanity) killed or be destroyed totally in one way or another, of the degree to which the troubled movements of the resistance's mind were bound up with what he had seen, or thought he had seen at that strange valley. But he is free now why not go home and be happy? But he searches for something personal and that thing was about him alone and Ntu, before he could face the big world. To change the World one must understand it. He wants to understand the reason why people hanged Mumbasatha and in this introduction called Ntu knowing he was not guilty. Repetitively he went to see the people who were present when this man was killed by hanging. LongWalk decided not to go and see the people he had first thought they would give him answer about the hanged man. But next day, when he turned up again notwithstanding, they asked what it was in their confidence that he didn't understand; showing clearly that they felt sorry and reproached themselves for not having welcomed him properly and been glad to give him the knowledge for which he was thirsting. What was it he wanted to ask them about that he didn't understand? The Author on the other hand is searching LongWalk Freedom's inspiration that is awaking the World and make LongWalk a hirror in modern World of Crisses and Violence.
