Biography
Shawn Slovo is a South African screenwriter. She was born in South Africa in 1950, the daughter of anti-apartheid activists Joe Slovo and Ruth First. Her family moved to the United Kingdom in 1964 as political refugees. In the late 1970s she worked as Robert De Niro's personal assistant on the films Raging Bull (1980) and The King of Comedy (1982).
Slovo's first screenplay was A World Apart (1988), directed by Chris Menges, which drew on her childhood experiences. It won the Jury Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1988. She later wrote the screenplays for Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), Catch a Fire (2006) and Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013). She lives in London.
