Description

Book Synopsis
A passionate witness to the colossal upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, a daughter who always had to come second to political commitment. Whilst recalling the extraordinary events which surrounded her family's persecution and exile, and reconstructing the truth of her parents' relationship and her own turbulent childhood, Gillian Slovo has also created an astonishing portrait of a courageous, beautiful mother and a father of integrity and stoicism.

Trade Review
A luminous achievement * OBSERVER *
Wonderfully moving ... anger, frustration, and the hunger for sharing wash her pages, though they never swamp the admiration for her parents * GUARDIAN *
Gillian Slovo has written a brave book, as unsparing of herself as it is of her parents ... a moving testimony * Christopher Hope, INDEPENDENT *
An extraordinary expression of the very nature of loving, which illuminates, with the anger and tenderness of deep emotion, that human territory we all occupy, and where we conceal so much from ourselves * Nadine Gordimer *

Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country

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    A Paperback / softback by Gillian Slovo

    £10.44

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    RRP £10.99 – you save £0.55 (5%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Tue 25 Aug 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
      Published 6 August 2009
      ISBN-13 9781844085996
      978-1844085996
      ISBN-10 1844085996
      Also in:
      Biography Memoirs Political activism / Political engagement

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      A passionate witness to the colossal upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, a daughter who always had to come second to political commitment. Whilst recalling the extraordinary events which surrounded her family's persecution and exile, and reconstructing the truth of her parents' relationship and her own turbulent childhood, Gillian Slovo has also created an astonishing portrait of a courageous, beautiful mother and a father of integrity and stoicism.

      Trade Review
      A luminous achievement * OBSERVER *
      Wonderfully moving ... anger, frustration, and the hunger for sharing wash her pages, though they never swamp the admiration for her parents * GUARDIAN *
      Gillian Slovo has written a brave book, as unsparing of herself as it is of her parents ... a moving testimony * Christopher Hope, INDEPENDENT *
      An extraordinary expression of the very nature of loving, which illuminates, with the anger and tenderness of deep emotion, that human territory we all occupy, and where we conceal so much from ourselves * Nadine Gordimer *

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