This autobiography provides an investigation into the past of Gillian Slovo's family and country. Brought up in exile, Gillian Slovo retains the closest of ties with South Africa. After her father Joe's death in 1995, she travelled back to South Africa to piece together her family's past. As the daughter of two of the most heroic anti-apartheid campaigners (her mother was Ruth First, heroine of the film A World Apart) it is a story that intersects with much of South Africa's bloodiest history, and tracking down the men who ordered her mother's killing is only one of the painful and intimate secrets that she had to face. Slovo and her family were close witnesses of the events in South Africa over the past 30 years and are close friends of Nelson Mandela.