Nelson Mandela in 2006. Photo: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Nelson Mandela’s foundation said it would publish a book next year that South Africa’s first black president began writing shortly before he left office as a sequel to his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

Mandela, who died last year aged 95, began writing the book titled The Presidential Years in 1998 and continued working on it until 2002, when he “finally ran out of steam”, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said in a statement.

Mandela left 10 hand-written chapters and his former colleagues worked on a finished draft.

In the first hand-written page of the book, dated October 16, 1998, the anti-apartheid hero begins by discussing the hopes, fears and fragilities of liberation movements the world over.

“Men and women, all over the world, right down the centuries, come and go. Some leave nothing behind, not even their names. It would seem that they never existed at all,” are the opening words of the memoir.

The book attacks the greed of former revolutionaries

“Others do leave something behind: the haunting memory of the evil deeds they committed against other people,” the page released by the foundation goes on to say.

The book attacks the greed of former revolutionaries, according to a copy seen by Reuters last year. Two decades after the end of white minority rule, some sections of the book may make uncomfortable reading for present leaders of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), including President Jacob Zuma, who is embroiled in a scandal over a 206 million rand (€16 million) taxpayer-funded upgrade to his private home.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation said it was working with the ANC to publish the book.

The foundation released another hand-written page it says Mandela attached to his first draft listing five people who are to be given copies of the 10 chapters of the book.

The five are Zuma and his spokesman Mac Maharaj, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, former foundation chief executive John Samuels and former ANC heavyweight Joel Netshitenzhe.

Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela’s 1994 work that covers his early life and almost three decades in jail, sold millions of copies and was turned into a Hollywood film last year, taking around $27 million at the box office.