Gillian Slovo

Irina Davydovna is a cleaner. She has no time for politics or even for that matter, people: 'rules and rulers may come and go, but dirt never changes.' Boris Aleksandrovich is a revolutionary. He thinks he understands power. But this is Leningrad in 1933 and Stalin is about to turn against their city. When the life of his beloved daughter Natasha is threatened and his old friend Anton saves a skinny little orphan he finds on a Moscow train, Boris' faith in his ideals are put to the test. While Irina, watching it all, must learn the power of loyalty and love. 'Powerful and moving, Ice Road is a novel whose epic scope never obscures the individual lives that are lived in the shadow of great events. I shall never forget Natasha and Kolya's love story . . . or Irina, whose sturdy self respect and determination to survive, seems, at times, to speak for an entire people. Gillian Slovo excels in depicting complex human beings, full of passion, love, ambition, self-interest, who are caught up in their country's history and swept along by it.' Pat Barker

Ice Road

China Miéville

Susan Abulhawa

Henning Mankell

Chinua Achebe

Geoff Dyer

Michael Ondaatje

Linda Spalding

Adam Foulds

Pankaj Mishra

Claire Messud

Kamila Shamsie

Teju Cole

Deborah Moggach

Michael Palin

J.M. Coetzee

Raja Shehadeh

Rachel Holmes

Sabrina Mahfouz

William Sutcliffe

Mohammed Hanif

Molly Crabapple

Alice Walker

Mahmoud Darwish

Ed Pavlic

Ru Freeman

Najwan Darwish

Jeremy Harding

Yasmin El-Rifae

Suheir Hammad

Mercedes Kemp

John Horner

Suad Amiry

Bridget Keenan

Jehan Bseiso

Atef Abu Saif

Omar El-Khairy

Selma Dabbagh

Remi Kanazi

Muiz,

Ghada Karmi

Maath Musleh

Nancy Kricorian

Nathalie Handal

Victoria Brittain

Jamal Mahjoub

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world. The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power." Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations. Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.

Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature

This Is Not A Border

A Novel

Red Dust

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission comes to visit Smitsrivier, a small dusty town in South Africa's Karroo region. Three people, returning after many years away, are about to meet their pasts and come to terms with the present. (back of book).

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...

It's 4 a.m. and Cathy Mason is watching dawn break over the Lovelace estate. By the end of the day, her community will be a crime scene. By the end of the week, her city will be on fire. In this gripping thriller, a death at police hands has repercussions far beyond one family plunged into grief ...As violence erupts in the middle of a stifling heatwave, the dead man becomes a useful tactic (or an urgent threat) in political games at the highest level. So while lives are at risk in Cathy Mason's estate, across London in Westminster, careers are being made, or ruined. From a Home Secretary's attempts to unseat a Prime Minister, to a new Met Police Commissioner fighting for his job, to families torn apart: in Ten Days, Orange Prize-shortlisted author Gillian Slovo shows what happens when politics, policing and the hard realities of living in London explosively collide.

Ten Days

Ahmed Errachidi

On September 11th 2001, in a cafe in London, Ahmed Errachidi watched as the twin towers collapsed. In a series of terrible events, Ahmed was soon sold by the Pakistanis to the Americans and spent 5 and a half years in Guantanamo. There, he was beaten, tortured and humiliated. But Ahmed did not give in. This very ordinary, Moroccan-born London chef became a leader of men. Known by the authorities as The General, he devised protests and resistance by any means possible. But then, Ahmed was freed, his innocence admitted. This is Ahm.

The Ordinary Man who Became One of the Bravest Prisoners in Guantánamo

The General

The new verbatim drama from the pioneering team behind Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom. Over the last twelve months headlines have been dominated by the growth of Islamic State, and terror attacks claimed by IS have spread across the world. What is the entity that calls itself Islamic State? Why are some young Muslim men and women from across Western Europe leaving their homes to answer the call of Jihad? And what should we do about it? This piece of verbatim documentary theatre, written by novelist Gillian Slovo using material from the interviews she conducted and directed by Nicolas Kent, is the result of many months researching Islamic State, meeting people affected by the organization and involved in the fight against it.

Losing our Children to Islamic State

Another World

FWPC Janet Morris is in trouble - in her own police station - and even Kate Baeier is unable to help her. Is it because WPC Morris can't call for help? Or is it something even more sinister? After five years abroad as a war reporter, interviewing Chief Superintendent Ellis for a personality piece should be straightforward for Kate Baeier. And it is. Until she hears of WPC Morris' alleged rape - in Ellis' station - and begins to ask quetions. Evasions and silence quickly turn to threats as Kate, tenacious - and sometimes reckless - pursues all increasingly terrifying collision course with the truth.

Close Call

'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'

Guantanamo

Richard Norton-Taylor

Nicolas Kent

From 1994-2012 Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre produced an extraordinary body of work that sought to engage, inform,and critique British and International Politics using verbatim testimony to respond to contemporary issues. Collected here for the first time are the complete ‘Tribunal Plays’. 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tricycle’ sfirst Tribunal Play – Half the Picture. This collection celebrates a remarkable and enduring body of work. Contains the plays Half the Picture, Nuremberg, Srebrenica, The Colour of Justice, Justifying War, Guantanamo, Bloody Sunday, Called to Account, Tactical Questioning and The Riots. Also included is a brand-new round table discussion with Nicolas Kent, Richard Norton-Taylor, Gillian Slovo and the playwright David Edgar, charting the history and development of each show and the contribution the Tribunal Plays have made to political theatre in the last two decades, and a foreword by Guardian journalist and chief theatre critic Michael Billington.

Collected Tribunal Plays 1994-2012

The Tricycle

When the genteely impoverished and rebellious Evelyn marries the charming Emil, scion of a privileged Sinhalese family, she thinks that her dream of a life in England can now at last come true. So the family travel, with their young son Milton, from Ceylon to Tilbury Docks. But this is England in the 1950s and, no matter how hard Evelyn wishes that it would, England does not take kindly to strangers, especially families who are half black and half white. A profound and moving novel, this is the story about the search to feel at home in your own skin.

Black Orchids

The story of Alan, a white ANC member, who is suspected by his comrades of the unthinkable; of Rebecca, the black woman the ANC choose to judge him and of Sarah, an English woman whose political curiosity and love for Alan throw her up against the secret police. By the author of Ties of Blood .

The Betrayal

It's 4 a.m. and Cathy Mason is watching dawn break over the Lovelace estate. By the end of the day, her community will be a crime scene. By the end of the week, her city will be on fire. In this gripping thriller, a death at police hands has repercussions far beyond one family plunged into grief. When violence grips Cathy's estate, the dead man becomes a useful tactic (or an urgent threat) in political games at the highest level. So while lives are at risk on Cathy Mason's estate, across London in Westminster, careers are being made, or ruined. From a Home Secretary's attempts to unseat a Prime Minister, to a new Met Police Commissioner fighting for his job, to families torn apart, Ten Days shows what happens when politics, policing and the hard realities of living in London explosively collide.

"I don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed for which not only I but my wife and children should continually suffer." - British detainee Moazzam Begg This verbatim play, drawn from letters and interviews from Guantanamo Bay prisoners, their lawyers and relatives, weaves together personal stories, legal opinion and political debate. Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom looks at the questions surrounding the detentions in Guantanamo Bay, and asks how much damage is being done to Western democratic values during the 'war on terror'. Orignally produced at London's Tricycle Theatre, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom subsequently transferred to London's West End.

Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'

Roman

Roter Staub

Bernardine Evaristo

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Monica Ali

Ian Sansom

David Constantine

David Herd

Patrick Gale

Lisa Appignanesi

Jonathan Skinner

Lytton Smith

Emma Parsons

Roma Tearne

Jonathan Wittenberg

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released. In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives. ‘We hear so many of the wrong words about refugees – ugly, limiting, unimaginative words – that it feels like a gift to find here so many of the right words which allow us to better understand the lives around us, and our own lives too.’ – Kamila Shamsie All profits go to the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group and Kent Help for Refugees.

Refugee Tales: Volume III

On 11 September 2001, in a café in London, Ahmed Errachidi watched as the twin towers collapsed. He was appalled by the loss of innocent life. But he couldn’t possibly have predicted how much of his own life he too would lose because of that day. In a series of terrible events, Ahmed was sold by the Pakistanis to the Americans in the diplomatic lounge at Islamabad airport and spent five and a half years in Guantanamo. There, he was beaten, tortured, humiliated, very nearly destroyed. But Ahmed did not give in. This very ordinary, Moroccan-born London chef became a leader of men. Known by the authorities as The General, he devised protests and resistance by any means possible. As a result, he spent most of his time in solitary confinement. But then, after all those years, Ahmed was freed, his innocence admitted. This is Ahmed’s story. It will make you rethink what it means to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It will also make you look anew at courage, survival, justice and the War on Terror.

The ordinary man who challenged Guantanamo

Gillian Slovo

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