Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography

A revealing and highly entertaining autobiography of one of the key figures of the African National Congress, described as South Africa’s ?most important and most popular, white leader.” As an immigrant from Lithuania, a Jew, a communist, a guerrilla fighter and strategist ? and white ? few public figures in South Africa were as demonized by the apartheid government as Joe Slovo.

Joe Slovo began his political life as a lawyer at the Johannesburg Bar where he was a colleague and close collaborator of Nelson Mandela in the 1950s. He also served as Mandela’s lawyer in that period. He was co-founder with Mandela of the ANC’s guerrilla movement, and became the first white person elected to the ANC national executive.

Slovo began writing this autobiography after the fatal bomb attack on his wife, Ruth First, portrayed in the film ?A World Apart.” After many years in prison and exile, Slovo returned to South Africa where he was to play a leading role in the constitutional negotiations. Following South Africa’s first-ever democratic election in April 1994, he won widespread respect and admiration as Minister for Housing. He died of cancer in January 1995.