Gillian Slovo
Gillian Slovo (born 15 March 1952) is a South African-born novelist, playwright and memoirist. She has lived in London since 1964 and has one daughter, Cassie.
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 and starring Hilary Swank, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jamie Bartlett. 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.
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 famous South Africans and major 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. 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. With Victoria Brittain, Slovo compiled the play Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, which was put on in theatres internationally.[1]
Contents
English PEN Presidency[edit]
Slovo was the 25th president 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 the killing of journalists in that country, alongside presidents of other PEN Centres and internationally prominent writers.[2]
Awards and honours[edit]
- 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist for Ice Road[3][4]
- 2013 Golden PEN Award[5]
Bibliography[edit]
Novels[edit]
- Morbid Symptoms (1984)
- Death by Analysis (1986)
- Death Comes Staccato (1987)
- Ties of Blood (1989)
- The Betrayal (1991)
- Looking for Thelma (1991)
- Façade (1993)
- Catnap (1994)
- Close Call (1995)
- Red Dust (2000)
- Ice Road (2004)
- Black Orchids (2008)
- An Honourable Man (2012)
- Ten Days (2016)
Plays[edit]
- Guantanamo : Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (with Victoria Brittain) (2005)
- The Riots (2011 play)
Biography[edit]
- Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country (1997)
- Merhaba Sinem (2014)
References[edit]
- ^ "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom". Timeline Theatre. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
- ^ Gillian Slovo, "'In Mexico, Reporters are Hunted Like Rabbits'", Author Author, The Guardian. 3 February 2012.
- ^ Brace, Marianne (12 June 2004). "Andrea Levy: Notes from a small island". The Independent. London. Retrieved 7 June 2009.
- ^ Ezard, John (6 January 2005). "Whitbread novel prize is double for Levy". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 June 2007.
- ^ Liz Bury (3 December 2013). "Gillian Slovo wins Golden PEN award". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
External links[edit]
- Contemporary Writers: Gillian Slovo
- Gillian Slovo discusses Red Dust on the BBC World Book Club
- Audio/Video recording of a talk by Gillian Slovo on "Human Rights and the Arts: Guantanamo in the Theater" at the University of Chicago.
- Interview of Gillian Slovo by Anthony Clare on BBC Radio 4's In the Psychiatrist's Chair (originally broadcast August 1997), based in part on her biography
- 1952 births
- Slovo family
- Living people
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- South African dramatists and playwrights
- Women dramatists and playwrights
- South African memoirists
- South African Jews
- White South African people
- Presidents of the English Centre of PEN
- South African women novelists
- Women memoirists
