I'm always excited when the short-list winners of the Orange Prize are announced, partly because there are always one or two women whose work I'm not familiar with at all. This year I'm investigating the history and novels of South African-born novelist Gillian Slovo. Her tenth novel, Ice Road, made the short list and I'm dying to read it, although it has not been published yet in the U.S. Little, Brown is the publisher, so I think it's likely it will be in bookstores here before too much time has passed.

Slovo was born in 1952, the daughter of anti-apartheid Communists. According to the Orange Prize website (link in preceding paragraph), her family was exiled to England in 1964. I wish I knew more about the circumstances, so I'll have to find Slovo's memoir about her childhood, Every Secret Thing, My Family, My Country.