Product Description: Ruth was four years old when her father was arrested for high treason and her world was turned upside-down. She grew up in constant fear of Special Branch policemen knocking on the door to arrest her mother or father, prominent South African communist...read more

The story of the pioneering anti-apartheid leader who led Nelson Mandela's defence at the Rivonia trial. One of the few Afrikaners to join the resistance movement, considered a traitor by the apartheid regime, he sacrificed material success and eventually his life to do what he believed was right.

Product Description: Presenting the second installment in a standout series, this updated biography records the life of radical political activist and scholar Ruth First, who was considered one of the foremost journalists of her time. Containing newly added details to mark the 30th anniversary of First’s tragic assassination in 1982, this second edition studies her membership in the Communist Party, illustrating her insider's view on the extraordinary social, political, and labor struggles that took place in South Africa from the end of World War II until her exile in 1963...read more

Red in the Rainbow is a story of humanity in the face of political turmoil. Fred and Sarah Carneson were fiercely committed members of the Communist Party from the 1930s onwards. Dedicated activists in brutal times, theirs is a story of political persecution and torture, prolonged separation and enduring love. Lynn Carneson, their daughter, candidly narrates the terror, the pain and the joy of her extraordinary life as the child of such devoted freedom fighters, revealing how, despite endless campaigning, financial difficulty, emotional breakdown, banning, torture and imprisonment, the family managed to stay together. Based on personal recollection as well as letters, official records and newspaper articles, Lynn describes her parents’ underground work and their involvement in watershed events such as the Treason Trial and the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. She evokes the tension of secretive operations and the family’s constant surveillance by security police, as well as the trauma of her father’s trial and prison sentence. Lynn vividly recounts their life as exiles in London and their long-awaited return to South Africa in 1991. This is a political memoir with a difference: a unique perspective on how the political lives of the author’s parents impacted on family life.

Product Description: 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...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)