Writing Left

The radical press which helped to end apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s was born of traditions developed by a group of small newspapers which emerged in the 1940s and were battered into silence by the early 1960s. Many of the journalists and editors of earlier publications were imprisoned or driven into exile and emerged, in 1994, as the leaders of a new, democratic South Africa.One of the most influential journalists of that press tradition did not return. In 1983 Ruth First was killed by a letter bomb sent to her Mozambique office by white police operatives. In a flash of powerful explosive South Africa lost one of its most intelligent, incisive and dedicated journalists. This is a book about her role in the struggle for a free and committed press with heart.The book explores a side of Ruth First - an anti-apartheid struggle icon - that is little known. Her writings were banned in South Africa during the apartheid era.