''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 and also addresses 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 and create new wounds making the characters face the truth or their ideas of it.

Biographical context

Gillian Slovo's interest in the TRC derives from her family background that is deeply rooted in the struggle against apartheid. In fact, her parents are the only whites buried in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery. Her father, Joe Slovo, led the South African Communist Party and was also a leading figure of the African National Congress. He is also one of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC, founded in the early 1960s. Joe Slovo returned to South Africa in 1990 to take part in the negotiations between ANC and the white government about a peaceful transition towards democracy. He later served as Minister for Housing under Nelson Mandela until his death in 1995. Ruth First, Gillian's mother, was a determined activist as well. She worked, after having to flee South Africa in 1964, at various English universities before returning to the continent in 1978 to continue her struggle at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique. On 17 August 1982, she was murdered by a parcel bomb sent by the South African Security Force. She acknowledges that ''Red Dust'' is a direct result of her mother's death. She wrote, "The seeds of it were born out of my grave-side realisation that if the country would not leave me alone, then I would have to face it". Gillian Slovo experienced the workings of the TRC herself when she faced the murderer of her mother,