To mark the first Mandela Day since the death of Africa's most revered leader, we visit South Africa to look at his literary legacy. His widow, Graça Machel, talks to David Smith in her first audio interview since her husband's death, and his former private secretary Zelda La Grange explains why she felt it was important to write a memoir of her time with him.

We also find out what other recent Mandela chroniclers have to say about him, including two South African politicians Melanie Verwoerd and Tony Leon.

Then we travel north, to meet a rising star of African American fiction, Dinaw Mengestu, to find out what he has been up to since winning the Guardian first book award in 2007. His latest novel, All Our Names, is set partly in revolutionary Uganda and partly in the US. He explains why it has taken him so long to write directly about Africa, why he is drawn to people on the margins of society, and how the American midwest – where his central character ends up – is not so distant today from the bigoted society depicted in the novel.

Reading list

Good Morning Mr Mandela by Zelda La Grange (Penguin)
Knowing Mandela by John Carlin (Atlantic)
Our Madiba by Melanie Verwoerd (NB Publishers,South Africa)
Opposite Mandela by Tony Leon (Jonathan Ball Publishers, South Africa)
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu (Sceptre)