Gillian Slovo

Gillian Slovo is a South African born novelist who has lived in England since 1964. Her first novel, Morbid Symptoms (1984), began a series of crime fiction featuring female detective Kate Baeier. Other novels in the series include Death by Analysis (1986), Death Comes Staccato (1987), Catnap (1994) and Close Call (1995). Her other novels include Ties of Blood (1989), The Betrayal (1991) and Red Dust (2000), a courtroom drama set in contemporary South Africa, which explores the effects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that has since been made into a movie startting Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Gillian Slovo is the daughter of Joe Slovo, leader of the South African Communist party, and Ruth First, journalist, economist, philosopher and anti-apartheid activist who was murdered in 1982. Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country (1997) is a moving account of her childhood in South Africa and her relationship with her parents. Her latest book, Ice Road (2004), set in Leningrad in 1933, explores an Arctic winter in Stalin's Russia; family ties, love and loyalty are all tested to the limits, uncovering the dark effects of Soviet communism on the human spirit, and was shortlisted for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction. She is also co-author of the play 'Guantanamo-Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.' Gillian Slovo lives in London.