Selected Writings

Ruth First held multiple roles during the struggles of her time as acommunist militant, journalist, and leading intellectual in South Africa. She was born intoa political family in Johannesburg in 1925 and, as a student in the 1940s, founded animportant organisation, the Federation of Progressive Students with other anti-apartheid activists.Her cohort of fellow students and comrades included a broad swathe of activists, such asNelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane, the first leader of the Liberation Front of Mozambique(FRELIMO).   While in exile in Mozambique and the United Kingdom, First carried outpioneering research on the lives of migrant labourers in South African gold mines, critiquingthe apartheid state’s imperialist ambitions and the impact of Western imperial nations onAfrica. Tragically, on 17 August 1982, she was assassinated by a spy for the apartheid state whosent a deadly letter bomb to her office in Maputo.   Ruth Selected Writings, the sixth joint book published by the International Union of Left Publishers, brings together five stirring essays on a range of topicsincluding the landmark 1956 Women’s March, the workings of the apartheid state, and the history ofarmed struggle against this state, introduced by an essay on First’s life and legacy, writtenby Vashna Jagarnath, a labour activist who works in the office of the general secretary of theNational Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA).