Gillian Slovo

Gillian Slovo is the daughter of anti-apartheid campaigners Ruth First and Joe Slovo – her mother was murdered in 1982. Slovo’s novel Red Dust, a courtroom drama that explores the meanings and effects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was made into a film directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor. A later novel, Ice Road, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe in the Financial Times:

What music helps you write?

During Ice Road, I listened to Shostakovich. It perfectly fitted what I was writing. I was writing about Leningrad so I listened to the Leningrad Symphony.

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What book do you wish you’d written?

There are many. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. It’s incredibly wise and beautiful.

What does it mean to be a writer?

It’s an enormous privilege to be able to inhabit a world you’ve partly created.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue