| Intro | South African writer | ||
| Is |
Writer Journalist Playwright |
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| From | South Africa | ||
| Type |
Film, TV, Stage & Radio Journalism Literature |
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| Gender | female | ||
| Birth | 15 March 1952, Johannesburg | ||
| Age: | 68 years | ||
| Star sign | Pisces | ||
| Family |
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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.
English PEN Presidency
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.
Awards and honours
- 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist for Ice Road
- 2013 Golden PEN Award
- 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.