Gillian Slovo

Gillian Slovo was born on 15 March 1952 in Johannesburg, South Africa, a daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First.^[1] Her family moved to London in 1964, as political exiles.^[2] Her family is Jewish.^[3]

Slovo attended the University of Manchester, graduating in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in the history and philosophy of science, before working as a journalist and television producer.^[2]

Slovo's novels were at first predominantly of the crime and thriller genres, including a series featuring the detective Kate Baeier, but she has since written more literary fiction. Her 2000 work Red Dust, a courtroom drama that explores the meanings and effects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was made into a film of the same name released in 2004, directed by Tom Hooper.^[4]

Slovo's 2004 work Ice Road was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel incorporates real events (the death of Sergey Kirov) with a fictionalised rendering of life during the Siege of Leningrad.^[5]

With Victoria Brittain, Slovo wrote the play Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, which was staged internationally in 2004.^[6]

Slovo's 1997 memoir, Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country, is an account of her childhood in South Africa and her relationship with her parents Joe Slovo and Ruth First – both South African Communist Party leaders and figures in the anti-apartheid struggle who lived perilous lives of exile, armed resistance, and occasional imprisonment, which culminated in her mother's assassination by South African forces in 1982.^[7][8]

A family memoir in the form of a feature film, A World Apart (1988), was written by her sister Shawn Slovo and starred Barbara Hershey.^[9]

Slovo was the 25th president (2020–2013) of the English Centre of International PEN, the worldwide writers fellowship. In 2012, she took part in a PEN International delegation to Mexico to protest against the killing of journalists in that country, alongside presidents of other PEN Centres and internationally prominent writers.^[10]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Slovo signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."^[11][12] She is a supporter of the boycott of Israeli cultural institutions. She was an original signatory of the manifesto "Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions".^[13]

Source^[14]

• 2004: Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist for Ice Road^[18][19]
• 2013: Golden PEN Award^[20]
• 2013: Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature^[21]