Gillian Slovo

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

'It was a tower block, but it was home.' The early hours of Wednesday 14 June 2017. The north-west corner of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. A twenty-four-storey residential tower. The scene of a national tragedy. This powerful verbatim play is drawn from the testimony of residents – a group of survivors and bereaved – at the heart of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It reveals the impact of the multiple failures that led to the most devastating residential fire in the UK since the Second World War, and asks: how do we stop this ever happening again? Startling, urgent and deeply moving, Grenfell: in the words of survivors explores the courage and resilience of an ill-treated community and their continued campaign for justice. Created from interviews by Gillian Slovo, the play was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in July 2023, co-directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike. 10% of the net proceeds from sales of this book will be donated by the publisher to the Grenfell Foundation, who support the bereaved and survivors in the aftermath of the fire, as well as help them ensure Grenfell is remembered long into the future.

The Government has so far refused a Public Inquiry into the riots that shook our cities this Summer, so the Tricycle is mounting its own.This verbatim play builds a real-time picture of the riots as they unfolded. And then, from interviews with politicians, police, teachers, lawyers, community leaders, as well as victims and on-lookers, The Riots analyses what happened, why it happened, and what we should do towards making a better future for ourselves and our city. Astonishing stories and equally astonishing conclusions told by the many voices that have been stirred up by the riots.

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released. In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives.

It's 4 a.m. and Cathy Mason is watching dawn break over the Lovelace estate. By the end of the day, her community will be a crime scene. By the end of the week, her city will be on fire.In this gripping thriller, a death at police hands has repercussions far beyond one family plunged into grief. When violence grips Cathy's estate, the dead man becomes a useful tactic (or an urgent threat) in political games at the highest level. So while lives are at risk on Cathy Mason's estate, across London in Westminster, careers are being made, or ruined. From a Home Secretary's attempts to unseat a Prime Minister, to a new Met Police Commissioner fighting for his job, to families torn apart, Ten Days shows what happens when politics, policing and the hard realities of living in London explosively collide.

The new verbatim drama from the pioneering team behind Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom.Over the last twelve months headlines have been dominated by the growth of Islamic State, and terror attacks claimed by IS have spread across the world.What is the entity that calls itself Islamic State? Why are some young Muslim men and women from across Western Europe leaving their homes to answer the call of Jihad? And what should we do about it?This piece of verbatim documentary theatre, written by novelist Gillian Slovo using material from the interviews she conducted and directed by Nicolas Kent, is the result of many months researching Islamic State, meeting people affected by the organization and involved in the fight against it.

On 11 September 2001, in a cafe in London, Ahmed Errachidi watched as the twin towers collapsed.

A stunning novel of war, from the bestselling author of Red Dust and Ice Road.

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.

When the genteely impoverished and rebellious Evelyn marries the charming Emil, scion of a privileged Sinhalese family, she thinks that her dream of a life in England can now at last come true. So the family travel, with their young son Milton, from Ceylon to Tilbury Docks. But this is England in the 1950s and, no matter how hard Evelyn wishes that it would, England does not take kindly to strangers, especially families who are half black and half white.A profound and moving novel, this is the story about the search to feel at home in your own skin.

Die Juristin Sarah Barcant kehrt nach 14 Jahren in das südafrikanische Smitsrivier zurück, um ihrem Mentor Ben Hoffman in einerAnhörung vor der Truth and Reconciliaton Commission zu assistieren. Dirk Hendricks, früher Polizist und geständiger Folterer, möchte für sich eine Amnestie erwirken. Ben Hoffman geht es in diesem Prozess vor allem darum, den Mörder von Alex Freund und Mitstreiter Steve Sizela zu überführen und die Leiche Sizelas zu finden. Mit Zusatzmaterialien.

"""I don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed for which not only I but my wife and children should continually suffer."" - British detainee Moazzam Begg This verbatim play, drawn from letters and interviews from Guantanamo Bay prisoners, their lawyers and relatives, weaves together personal stories, legal opinion and political debate. Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom looks at the questions surrounding the detentions in Guantanamo Bay, and asks how much damage is being done to Western democratic values during the 'war on terror'."

Set amid the tumult of the German invasion & the seige of Leningrad, this novel explores themes of loyalty, belief, love & family ties.

Shortlisted for The Orange Prize and highly praised on hardback publication. Set in Lenigrad of the 1930s, ICE ROAD is a compelling and passionate story about ordinary people - Boris, Natasha, Irina - caught up in history

"Written with the pace of a thriller" Times Literary Supplement. Red Dust is set in a rural South African town, where three people are about to meet their past. Sarah Barcant has left her law career in New York to assist an old friend as prosecutor on a Truth Commission hearing. Dirk Hendricks, a former police deputy, is being taken in handcuffs to the station where he once worked. There he will confront Alex Mpondo, the man he had tortured, who is now an MP."

* From the bestselling author of EVERY SECRET THING comes an extraordinary novel of the truth Commission, set in a hot and dry South African town.

The story of Alan, a white ANC member, who is suspected by his comrades of the unthinkable; of Rebecca, the black woman the ANC choose to judge him and of Sarah, an English woman whose political curiosity and love for Alan throw her up against the secret police. By the author of Ties of Blood .