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| Author | Gillian Slovo |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | courtroom drama, thriller, Philosophical |
| Publisher | Virago, Klett |
Publication date | 2000 |
| Publication place | UK |
| Media type | Print, (audio-CD) |
| Pages | 340 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-393-32399-3 |
| OCLC | 51915204 |
Red Dust is a 2000 novel written by South African-born Gillian Slovo that is structured around the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the fictional town Smitsrivier. Its key theme centers around the question of truth.
In post-apartheid South Africa, retired anti-apartheid activist and lawyer Ben Hoffman cannot turn down James Sizela's wish to use the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearing of local ex-police officer Dirk Hendricks to find out what happened to James's son Steve who has been missing since the mid-1980s confrontation between white state authorities and the black African National Congress (ANC). But Ben knows he cannot accept this case alone as he is ill and his powers are waning. He calls his former student, New York prosecutor Sarah Barcant to return to South Africa to help him with the amnesty hearing.
They hope that the questioning of MP Alex Mpondo, a torture victim of Dirk and comrade of Steve, in connection with the TRC's full disclosure law, will enable them to get hold of Pieter Muller, Smitsrivier's former police boss, who they think killed Steve Sizela. Intended to reconcile South Africans with the violent chapter of their country's past, the hearings turn out to open up old wounds, as well as create new ones, making the characters face the truth or their ideas of it.