Author Event - Alan Wieder
14th & V | Langston Room | October 16,2013 | 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Teaching for Change's Busboys and Poets Bookstore welcomes Alan Wieder to discuss and sign his new book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid
Ruth First and Joe Slovo, husband and wife, were leaders
of the war to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists, scholars,
parents, and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemies for
the white police state. Together they were swept up in the growing
resistance to apartheid, and together they experienced repression and
exile. Their contributions to the liberation struggle, as individuals
and as a couple, are undeniable. Ruth agitated tirelessly for the
overthrow of apartheid, first in South Africa and then from abroad, and
Joe directed much of the armed struggle carried out by the famous
Umkhonto we Sizwe. Only one of them, however, would survive to see the
fall of the old regime and the founding of a new, democratic South
Africa. This book, the first extended biography of Ruth First and Joe
Slovo, is a remarkable account of one couple and the revolutionary
moment in which they lived. Alan Wieder's deeply researched work draws
on the usual primary and secondary sources but also an extensive oral
history that he has collected over many years. By weaving the
documentary record together with personal interviews, Wieder portrays
the complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary couple and
their efforts to navigate a time of great tension, upheaval, and
revolutionary hope.
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