My mother, Juliana Safford, who has died aged 88, was born in California to Russian émigrés. She became a Londoner at the age of 82 when she moved to live near me.
Juliana's father, Alexander Brailovsky, was a Bolshevik from Rostov on the Don river. In New York he was an editor of and writer for Russian periodicals such as Novy Mir, Workman and Peasant, and Russian Voice. Her mother, Sophia Fridman, from St Petersburg, became a translator for clients such as the Russian film-maker Sergei Eisenstein and for the McDonnell Douglas aircraft company.
Juliana's childhood in the US was often filled with incident as her parents coped with attacks from both sides of the political spectrum. When she was 11 her father was expelled from the Communist party after refusing to toe the editorial line, and he narrowly evaded a kidnapping attempt that would have forcibly returned him to the Soviet Union for a show trial. A few years later Juliana's mother was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to answer questions about her work in a Russian bookshop. Juliana spent a day in Washington DC being looked after by an FBI agent while her mother was testifying.
In the 1960s Juliana took a degree in American Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles. She played the guitar, and we used to sing the folk and protest songs of the time. She took us on many civil rights marches, and for years we were forbidden to eat grapes, in support of the United Farm Workers of America. She joined the California civil service and worked for the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, helping to prosecute and fine employers and landlords for discrimination on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation.
When I moved to London in 1987, Juliana visited me at least once a year before herself moving permanently. She flourished at the University of the Third Age and organised its Wandsworth lecture series, finding speakers on a range of topics from children's literature to embedded journalism in Iraq.
She also relished giving talks to groups studying history, current events and literature. The last talks she gave were on UK immigration and President Obama's second term. She was preparing a talk on American literature, and on her desk are her books and notes for that lecture. She was great company, she loved an argument, and her sudden death has left a great gap in many lives.
Juliana is survived by her three children, myself, Monique and Tony, and her grandchildren, Miles, Ben and Sophia.