Quiet Time With the President: A Doctor’s Story about Learning to Listen by Peter Friedland with Jill Margo is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

After many years of serving the country, Dr Peter Friedland was given an opportunity to become a member of Nelson Mandela’s medical team, charged with looking after his hearing.

Mandela was in his post-presidential years and over time, a rapport built between the two men. Their conversations often veered towards politics with Mandela carefully shifting Friedland’s perspective or quietly prompting him to re-examine his position.

As an ENT specialist, Friedland spent many years treating victims of violent crime. This experience of trauma built incrementally, as he continued to lose colleagues and close friends to hijackings and assaults. His own family endured violence too, and eventually fear for his children’s safety drove him towards making a life-changing decision.

Through simply sitting with, and talking to Mandela, Friedland understood that when people make hard decisions, these never come cheap. His story beautifully captures the tension between an uncertain future, out of one’s control, and the fear that one might not thrive, let alone survive in a new land.

This book examines the powerful forces that push people away from South Africa and then pull them back. They find themselves in an emotional tug-of-war that continues, until something snaps.

About the authors

Professor Peter Friedland is a leading ear, nose and throat surgeon and holds the academic chair in this discipline in Western Australia. Most of his career was spent in South Africa, where he was clinical head of the department of ENT at the Wits University Donald Gordon Medical Centre.

Jill Margo is a bestselling author specialising in biography, memoir and health. Her books have been translated into three languages. She is also a multi-award-winning journalist on The Australian Financial Review.

Categories International Non-fiction

Tags Jill Margo Jonathan Ball Publishers New books New releases Peter Friedland Quiet Time With the President