Red Lines and Green Books: Ruth First in Libya

Abstract

Ruth First visited the country of Libya four times in its immediate post-revolution/coup period, researching her study of Qaddafi’s then still embryonic, but already embattled, regime. Libya: The Elusive Revolution was published in the United Kingdom by the Penguin African Library series in 1974 and reprinted in the United States the following year. The fifth of her books at the time, four of which had been written in the ten years since her departure from South Africa, Libya is both continuous and discontinuous with that previous work. This essay considers the significance of Ruth First’s reading of the Libyan revolution both in the context of her own oeuvre and against its ongoing historical narrative.