First published 2009
Gillian Slovo grows up in the shadow of her parents' fight against apartheid. Her mother Ruth First and father Joe Slovo dedicate their lives to dismantling South Africa's racist system, leaving their daughter to compete with political causes for attention and affection. The family faces government persecution that forces them into exile, separating Gillian from her homeland and disrupting her already unstable childhood. She watches her parents navigate the costs of their commitment while she struggles to understand her place in their world of secrecy and sacrifice. Through reconstructing family memories and political events, Slovo pieces together the complex truth about her mother's beauty and courage, her father's quiet strength, and her own turbulent coming of age. This memoir reveals how the personal and political intertwine when a family's private life becomes inseparable from a nation's struggle for freedom.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, african-literature, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century, activism, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: South Africa
Period: 20th Century, 21st Century
337 pages · Kindle Edition · Abacus