EVENT: Gillian Slovo in conversation

In conversation with Geraldine Mellet, Gillian Slovo talks about the passions and influences that inform her work and life.

Gillian Slovo was born in South Africa in 1952 and is the author of ten books. As the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, she witnessed the colossal upheaval that transformed her native South Africa. Ruth First and Joe Slovo were middle-class Jews who broke the South African colour bar and risked their lives fighting the apartheid regime. First was murdered in 1982 in Mozambique by pro-apartheid assassins.

In her internationally best-selling memoir, Every Secret Thing, Gillian Slovo recalls the extraordinary events that surrounded her family's persecution and exile in 1964. Her novel Red Dust, a courtroom drama set in contemporary South Africa which explores the effects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has recently been made into a movie starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Slovo’s most recent novel is Ice Road, set in the Arctic winter of Stalin's Russia where family ties, love and loyalty are all tested to the limits, uncovering the dark effects of Soviet communism on the human spirit. Ice Road was shortlisted for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Slovo’s documentary play, Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom, co-written with Victoria Brittain, is based on interviews with ex-Guantanamo Bay inmates, their relatives and lawyers. After a sell-out 2004 season at Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre it transferred to London’s West End. It also had a four-month run in New York’s Bleeker Street Theatre, and has been sold to Sweden, Italy, New Zealand and Spain. In the US there are now plans to put on the play in San Francisco as well as to stage mass readings throughout the country. Guantanamo has just been included in the nominations for a 2005 Olivier award.

Gillian Slovo lives in London.



Geraldine Mellet has primarily worked as a radio and television broadcaster and scriptwriter. In her twenty years in the industry she has been host and chief interviewer for a number of prime time current affairs, magazine and music programs including 'The Seven Thirty Report' (WA edition, and National summer edition - ABC), 'The Morning Program' (ABC Radio's central current affairs radio slot) 'The Planet' world music program and many years as weekend newsreader at Channel Ten. Geraldine has also produced and presented two documentaries as well as voicing and appearing in numerous others.

In addition she has worked as a scriptwriter for five children's drama series filmed in Perth. In recent years she has co-authored a book, filed a weekly newspaper column, and begun a Masters Degree. She also works as a freelance facilitator, MC and guest speaker.

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