London Book Talk

BOOK TALK at Housmans Bookshop London, UK
‘Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War to End Apartheid’
with Alan Wieder

Wednesday 30th April, 7pm

On a rare visit from America, distinguished academic Alan Wieder discusses his new book ‘Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War to End Apartheid’, the first extended biography of the husband and wife who committed their lives to 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 infamous Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, translated as "Spear of the Nation"). Only one of them, however, would survive to see the fall of the old regime and the founding of a new, democratic South Africa. 

Wieder’s heavily researched work draws on the usual primary and secondary sources but also an extensive oral history that he has collected over many years. By intertwining the documentary record with personal interviews, he portrays the complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary couple and their efforts to navigate a time of great tension, upheaval, and revolutionary hope. 

Alan Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and has also taught at the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He has written widely on South Africans who fought against the apartheid regime.