Nelson Mandela’s epic struggle to lead South Africa out of the hell of apartheid was in full review by the media following his death earlier this month. His 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom also gained renewed interest with the release of an acclaimed new movie based on the book. Some media stories about Mandela included archived interviews with “Mama Africa”, the Grammy Award-winning South African singer and civil rights activist Miriam Makeba, who died in 2008. Makeba also wrote an autobiography, Makeba: My Story.

I never had the honor of meeting Mandela but I did meet Makeba. In fact, I was a guest in her New Jersey home in the mid-1960s. As a student at New York’s High School of Music & Art, I loved Makeba’s music. I carried around her 1960 debut record album, aware that her daughter, Bongi (known in school as Angela) was a fellow student. Bongi saw me with the album and we struck up a friendship that led to my overnight stay in the Makeba home. You would never guess such a soft-spoken, sweet-natured, humble woman was already a mega-star. Though small of stature, Miriam Makeba was a goddess. I was awed by her. However, it was decades before I would really understand her, only after reading her autobiography.

By the time Makeba’s autobiography was published in 1987, she had suffered cancer, the dissolution of several marriages, the sorrow of Bongi’s untimely death, a decades-long exile from her beloved South Africa homeland after she spoke against apartheid, and the loss of a welcoming U.S. after her marriage to a controversial political activist. Her autobiography appeared as she was beginning to reconnect with an appreciative American audience, just a year after her Graceland tour with Paul Simon.

The lives of Mandela and Makeba were closely intertwined, even when they were countries or continents apart. She used her voice in speeches and songs, supporting Mandela during his imprisonment. Like Mandela, she rose above personal losses and the wounds of bigotry, understanding that love eventually triumphs over hate. In 1990, a recently freed Mandela persuaded Makeba to return to her native land (on her French passport). At Makeba’s death, Mandela led tributes for the global singer who had courageously spoken out against apartheid.

Now, these two giants have left us. Others can tell us much about Mandela and Makeba but to truly understand them, one must step into their lives through their own words. In their autobiographies, we hear their voices and see through their eyes how they viewed themselves and the times in which they lived. Long Walk to Freedom and Makeba: My Story are proof of the powerful literary form called “autobiography.”