Anti-apartheid icon and former South African President Nelson Mandela's deteriorating health has created an unusual interest among residents. While his relatives are bickering where to bury him in the event that he dies, others are snapping up books and other mementoes of the former national leader.

Reports said that bookstores in the country are enjoying good sales of all 26 books on the former president, ranging from his autobiography to speeches, quotations and photo albums.

One such book is the Mandela-authored Long Walk to Freedom which sells for 409 South African rands ($41).

Lucy Ngomane, a book sales assistant at Exclusive Books in Hyde Park, said a customer purchased three copies of that book and six photos. Other Mandela items selling briskly are souvenirs and shirts that have the image of the ailing 94-year-old ex-president who is in a Pretoria hospital.

Doctors have denied Mr Mandela is in a permanent vegetative state, although his demise would likely generate more sales for Mandala souvenir items.

At the Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton City, T-shirts with Mr Mandela's face are sold yearly before the anti-apartheid icon's birthday. The Mandela Foundation is actually running after the unauthorised exploitation of Mr Mandela's image, although the bigger battle insofar as exploitation of the former president is taking shape among his relatives.

Mandla Mandela, his grandson, moved the bodies of three of the elder Mandela's dead children in 2011 from Qunu, where the former president grew as a boy, to Mvezo, his birth place. The aim of the grandson, who is a chief at Mvezo, is to bury his grandfather beside his dead children which could make their small village a tourist attraction.

However, Mandla was thwarted in his plan because his other relatives had secured from the High Court of the Eastern Cape an order for the bodies to be returned to Qunu. The eldest grandson said he would not contest the court order issued on Wednesday.

"In the past few days I have been the subject of attacks from all sorts of individuals wanting a few minutes of fame and media attention at my expense," the younger Mandela was quoted by The New York Times.