Ruth Weiss (née Löwenthal; born 26 July 1924) is a German-born South African writer who focuses on anti-racism in all its forms.

In 1966 she became FM's Bureau Chief in Salisbury (Harare), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), but was declared persona non grata by the white regime because of her critical reporting and "sanction busting" stories.

From 1987 to 1991 she worked on the staff of the Zimbabwe Institute of Southern Africa (ZISA), which facilitated secret meetings of white and black South Africans, ahead of official talks, which began in 1990 and led to the dismantling of apartheid.

Nadine Gordimer wrote a letter that was read during the ceremony, and the Laudatio was given by Denis Goldberg, the only white on the trial with Nelson Mandela who, like the others, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

"My Sister Sara" tells of a four-year-old, blonde German war orphan patriotically adopted in 1948 by an Afrikaner parliamentarian who sympathises with the Nazis.

"Judenweg" is the fictional account of a young Jew turned robber out of anger and defiance against 17th century anti-Jewish laws which forced thousands into homelessness, wandering along unmarked paths, unable to remain anywhere for longer than two days.

[7] "Sascha und die neun alten Männer", a children's book, tells the adventure of a little Russian boy, who stumbles into a small house next to an old synagogue.

[8] One of her non-fiction works is a biography of Sir Garfield Todd, the unlikely New Zealand missionary who became the Prime Minister of Rhodesia but was sidelined because of his liberal policies of racial equality.

[12] Her autobiography Wege im harten Gras (Paths Through Tough Grass) documents her life till the late 1980s and has an epilogue written by her friend, the Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer.

[13] Friends, a later autobiography, describes her life through a journalist's prism as it intersected with history: Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Premier Zhou Enlai (China), Barack Obama, Sr. (Kenya), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Tiny Roland (Lonrho Plc) and other manipulators of African mineral wealth, brushes with the South African secret police, and even meetings on the Royal Yacht Britannia (unpublished 2011).

"ZDF Zeitzeugen" series (two one-hour features) 1995 "Europas blasses Judenkind," March 2011, Deutschlandfunk (repeated on WDR)