Red Dust
By (Author) Gillian Slovo
Little, Brown Book Group
Virago Press Ltd
13th February 2002
3rd January 2002
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823
Paperback
352
Width 177mm, Height 203mm, Spine 22mm
248g
There was probably only one person who could make Sarah Barcant, successful prosecutor, leave New York and return home to Smitsrivier, the small town in South Africa she left years before. Ben. her lawyer mentor and inspiration; the man who encouraged her to get out and know the world now needs her back, to help him with one last case, part of the Truth Commission. In the back of a van, handcuffed, Dirk Hendrickes is being driven to the police station where once he was proud to call himself deputy. Later, down the same hot, dry road, will come Alex Mpondo, alternating between cursing Dirk and feeling sick at the idea of facing him, his torturer. And in Smitsrivier: James Sizela, who has passed years waiting for the moment when the man he is certain killed his son, will be forced to tell where the body lies. The people who are about to meet their pasts will not experience the real truth-telling in the court room, at the public show. The real truth will be felt offstage...
'A rich, ambitious and powerful novel.' THE TIMES 'This is a beautifully written novel, with the pace and twists of a thriller and the atmosphere, scents and space of Africa.' GUARDIAN 'Covers the territory of Bernard Schlink's post-Holocaust novel The Reader as well as J.M. Coetzee's Booker-winning Disgrace.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Gillian Slovo (father Joe Slovo, mother Ruth First) was educated in Britain where she has spent all her adult life. Since Nelson Mandela's release she has made frequent visits to South Africa. She has written eleven books.