Gillian Slovo

Gillian Slovo (born 15 March 1952) is a South African-born memoirist, novelist and playwright. She has lived in London since her family was exiled; her mother, anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, was assassinated in 1982 by a parcel bomb sent by the South African Police. Slovo has received a Golden Pen Award.

Quotes

• [On being exiled in London in 1964, aged 12] I was a white South African kid who came from a lot of stress, given that my father had disappeared and we didn't know where he was, and my mother had been in prison. It was a relief to be in England but I had never taken a bus on my own. To learn to find my own way was quite a difficult thing to do.
  • From an interview with Andrew Anthony, as cited in "Gilliaon Slovo: 'I think the 2011 riots sparked something in me'", The Observer (21 February 2016).

• The consequences of marginalizing people on the basis of what they wear or what they say is very dangerous.
• “The actions of al-Qaeda or Islamic State can force our governments, and some of us, to give up on some of the hard-won democratic rights which is what makes us different from them. I’m talking about all sorts of things, freedom of expression being one of the most important ones.”
• “If our response is to stop people in our societies from saying things they don’t want us to say, we are falling into their trap
• “In the same way, one of the things in common from these very different people who went to Islamic State is the feeling that they don’t know where they belong, they are looking for a sense of belonging and they wrongly think they will only find that in this mythical caliphate that they think has been established.”
• Anyone feeling vulnerable can feel attracted to the “idealistic world
• The problem is that it’s all fake because they only respect women’s bodies by restricting them to the house and forcing them to cover up, which is not the same as someone choosing to cover up.”
• it appears that the appeal is not so much the religious rhetoric but the promise of an alternative to capitalism.
• “When you write a memoir you have to think about your responsibility to your audience that you’d be completely honest, and to people in your life. Your honesty is going to affect them.”
• “ask questions that they might not be asking of themselves” because as she says,
  • Gillian Slovo: The art of questioning (6 May 2016) by Angeles Rodenas retrieved 23 July 2022