Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu

The book starts in a very dramatic fashion with the description of a confrontation between Tutu and P.W. Botha. The vividly-written drama of the meeting has a certain sense of urgency to it and immediately draws in the reader and keeps him/her enthralled throughout the book. Though a thick book, I finished it fast since I didn't want to put it down. That for me is a thumbs-up. The author leads us through Tutu's life with ease and finesse as he describes Tutu's youth, his stay in England, his slow climb up the hierarchy in the clergy in South Africa despite resistance, his forays into the anti-Apartheid movement. He not only made the international community aware of Apartheid (`apart hate') but also lobbied with them for imposing sanctions on South Africa. The book climaxes with the freeing of Mandela and the holding of elections in mid-1990s. Throughout this easy-to-read book, Allen slowly builds up a mosaic of Tutu as being strong willed, persistent, compassionate and with a sense of humour. The various layers of Tutu's personality are revealed to the reader through anecdotes and reminiscences of others. The strength of this book also becomes one its only drawback. It is extremely well-researched but then there is so much happening all the time, so many characters both well-known and less known that the book, at certain pages, becomes a muddle of facts through which the reader has to plod through. However, that doesn't take away significantly from the quality of the book.