Nadine Gordimer
Her first published novel, The Lying Days (1953), takes place in Gordimer's home town of Springs, Transvaal, an East Rand mining town near Johannesburg. Arguably a semi-autobiographical work, The Lying Days is a bildungsroman, charting the growing political awareness of a young white woman, Helen, toward small-town life and South African racial division.[21]
In her 1963 work, Occasion for Loving, Gordimer puts apartheid and love squarely together. Her protagonist, Ann Davis, is married to Boaz Davis, an ethnomusicologist, but in love with Gideon Shibalo, an artist with several failed relationships. Ann Davis is white, however, and Gideon Shibalo is black, and South Africa's government criminalised such relationships.
Gordimer collected the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for A Guest of Honour in 1971 and, in common with a number of winners of this award, she was to go on to win the Booker Prize. The Booker was awarded to Gordimer for her 1974 novel, The Conservationist,[22] and was a co-winner with Stanley Middleton's novel Holiday. The Conservationist explores Zulu culture and the world of a wealthy white industrialist through the eyes of Mehring, the antihero. Per Wästberg described The Conservationist as Gordimer's "densest and most poetical novel".[1] Thematically covering the same ground as Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and J. M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country (1977), the "conservationist" seeks to conserve nature to preserve the apartheid system, keeping change at bay. When an unidentified corpse is found on his farm, Mehring does the "right thing" by providing it a proper burial; but the dead person haunts the work, a reminder of the bodies on which Mehring's vision would be built.
Gordimer's 1979 novel Burger's Daughter is the story of a woman analyzing her relationship with her father, a martyr to the anti-apartheid movement. The child of two Communist and anti-apartheid revolutionaries, Rosa Burger finds herself drawn into political activism as well. Written in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising, the novel was shortly thereafter banned by the South African government. Gordimer described the novel as a "coded homage" to Bram Fischer, the lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists.[23]
In July's People (1981), Gordimer imagines a bloody South African revolution, in which white people are hunted and murdered after black people begin a revolution against the apartheid government. The work follows Maureen and Bamford Smales, an educated white couple, hiding for their lives with July, their long-time former servant. The novel plays off the various groups of "July's people": his family and his village, as well as the Smales. The story examines how people cope with the terrible choices forced on them by violence, race hatred, and the state.
The House Gun (1998) was Gordimer's second post-apartheid novel. It follows the story of a couple, Claudia and Harald Lingard, dealing with their son Duncan's murder of one of his housemates. The novel treats the rising crime rate in South Africa and the guns that virtually all households have, as well as the legacy of South African apartheid and the couple's concerns about their son's lawyer, who is black. The novel was optioned for film rights to Granada Productions.[24][25][26]
Gordimer's award-winning 2002 novel, The Pickup, considers the issues of displacement, alienation, and immigration; class and economic power; religious faith; and the ability for people to see, and love, across these divides. It tells the story of a couple: Julie Summers, a white woman from a financially secure family, and Abdu, an illegal Arab immigrant in South Africa. After Abdu's visa is refused, the couple returns to his homeland, where she is the alien. Her experiences and growth as an alien in another culture form the heart of the work.[27][28][29][30]
Gordimer's recent novel, Get a Life, written in 2005 after the death of her longtime spouse, Reinhold Cassirer, is the story of a man undergoing treatment for a life-threatening disease. While clearly drawn from recent personal life experiences, the novel also continues Gordimer's exploration of political themes. The protagonist is an ecologist, battling installation of a planned nuclear plant. But he is at the same time undergoing radiation therapy for his cancer, causing him personal grief and, ironically, rendering him a nuclear health hazard in his own home. Here, Gordimer again pursues the questions of how to integrate everyday life and political activism.[14]
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Biography by Roberts
Ronald Suresh Roberts published a biography of Gordimer, No Cold Kitchen, in 2006. Gordimer had granted Roberts interviews and access to her personal papers, with an understanding that she would authorize the biography in return for a right to review the manuscript before publication. However, Gordimer and Roberts failed to reach an agreement over his account of the illness and death of Gordimer's husband Reinhold Cassirer and an affair Gordimer had in the 50s, as well as criticism of her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Roberts published independently, not as "authorized", and Gordimer disavowed the book, accusing Roberts of breach of trust.[31]
In addition to those disagreements, Roberts critiques Gordimer's post-apartheid advocacy on behalf of black South Africans, in particular her opposition to the government's handling of the AIDS crisis, as a paternalistic and hypocritical white liberalism. The biography also revealed that Gordimer's 1954 New Yorker essay, A South African Childhood, was not wholly biographical and contained some fabricated events.[31]
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Bibliography
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Honours and awards
- W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award (England) (1961)
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize (England) (1972)
- Booker Prize for The Conservationist (1974)
- CNA Prize (Central News Agency Literary Award), South Africa (1974, 1975, 1980, 1991)
- Grand Aigle d'Or (France) (1975)
- Orange Prize shortlisting; she rejected
- Scottish Arts Council Neil M. Gunn Fellowship (1981)
- Modern Language Association Award (United States) (1982)
- Bennett Award (United States) (1987)
- Premio Malaparte (Italy) (1985)
- Nelly Sachs Prize (Germany) (1986)
- Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (1988, A Sport of Nature)
- Nobel Prize for Literature (1991)
- Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best Book from Africa (2002; for The Pickup)
- Booker Prize longlist (2001; for The Pickup)
- Legion of Honour (France) (2007)[32]
- Hon. Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Hon. Member, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
- Fellow, Royal Society of Literature (Britain)
- Patron, Congress of South African Writers
- Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France)
- At least 15 honorary degrees (the first being Doctor Honoris Causa at Leuven University in Belgium)
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Further reading
Brief biographies
- Nadine Gordimer at www.contemporarywriters.com
- LitWeb.net: Nadine Gordimer Biography (2003)
- Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles
Critical studies
- Stephen Clingman, The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: History from the Inside (1986)
- John Cooke, The Novels of Nadine Gordimer
- Andrew Vogel Ettin, Betrayals of the Body Politic: The Literary Commitments of Nadine Gordimer (1993)
- Dominic Head, Nadine Gordimer (1994)
- Christopher Heywood, Nadine Gordimer (1983)
- Rowland Smith, editor, Critical Essays on Nadine Gordimer (1990)
- Barbara Temple-Thurston, Nadine Gordimer Revisited (1999) ISBN 0805746080
- Kathrin Wagner, Rereading Nadine Gordimer (1994)
- Louise Yelin, From the Margins of Empire: Christina Stead, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer (1998)
Short reviews
Speeches and interviews
- Nadine Gordimer, Nancy Topping Bazin, and Marilyn Dallman Seymour, Conversations with Nadine Gordimer (1990)
- Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech (1991)
Biographies
- Ronald Suresh Roberts, No Cold Kitchen: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer (2005)
Research archives
- Collection Index for Nadine Gordimer Short Stories and Novel Manuscript collection, 1958-1965 (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas)
- Guide to the Gordimer manuscripts, 1934-1991 (Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana)
- Nadine Gordimer Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
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References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- ^ a b c "A Writer's Life: Nadine Gordimer", April 3, 2006, Telegraph.
- ^ a b Nadine Gordimer, Guardian Unlimited (last visited Jan. 25, 2007).
- ^ a b "Nadine Gordimer: A Sport of Nature, The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards].
- ^ New Yorker, June 9, 1951.
- ^ The W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award.
- ^ Gail Caldwell, "South African Writer Given Nobel", The Boston Globe, Oct. 4, 1991.
- ^ a b Jonathan Steele, "White Magic", London Guardian, Oct. 27, 2001.
- ^ "Radiation, Race, and Molly Bloom: Nadine Gordimer Talks with BookForum", BookForum, Feb. / March 2006.
- ^ Gordimer wrote an account of the censorship in "What Happened to Burger's Daughter or How South African Censorship Works".
- ^ BBC News, "South Africa reinstates authors", April 22, 2001.
- ^ a b "Gordimer detractors 'insulting', says Asmal", News24.com, April 19, 2001.
- ^ Anuradha Kumar, "New Boundaries", The Hindu, 2004 Aug. 1.
- ^ a b c Donald Morrison, "Nadine Gordimer", Time Magazine 60 Years of Heroes (2006)
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1991, Nobel Prize Laureate biography.
- ^ Christopher S. Wren, "Former Censors Bow Coldly to Apartheid Chronicler", New York Times, Oct. 6, 1991.
- ^ a b Agence France-Presse, Nobel laureates join battle against AIDS, Dec. 1, 2004.
- ^ Gordimer and literary giants fight AIDS, iafrica.com, 2004 Nov. 29.
- ^ Nadine Gordimer and Anthony Sampson, Letter to The New Review of Books, Nov. 16, 2000.
- ^ Paris Review, Interview with Gordimer.
- ^ Judith Norman, "Special Commissioned Essay on The Lying Days".
- ^ The Conservationist
- ^ Brief biography of Bram Fischer, Bram Fischer Human Rights Programme, Wits School of Law (2005; last visited 2007/4/4).
- ^ Dwight Garner and Nadine Gordimer, "The Salon Interview: Nadine Gordimer, March 1998.
- ^ Bookreporter.com, ReadingGroup Guide, The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer.
- ^ David Medalie, "'The Context of the Awful Event': Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun", Journal of South African Studies, v.25, n.4 (Dec. 1999), pp. 633-644.
- ^ J. M. Coetzee, "Awakening" (review of The Pickup and Loot and Other Stories), The New York Review of Books, v.50, n. 16 (Oct. 23, 2003).
- ^ Sue Kossew, "Review of Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup", Quodlibet, v.1, Feb. 2005.
- ^ Penguin Book Clubs/Reading Guides, Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup.
- ^ Anthony York, "The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer" (book review), Salon.com, Dec. 6, 2001.
- ^ a b Donadio, Rachel (December 31, 2006), Bio Hazard, New York Times, <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/books/review/31donadio.html>
- ^ Celean Jacobson, "Nadine Gordimer awarded Legion of Honour", Mail & Guardian Online, April 1, 2007.
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gordimer, Nadine |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | South African Playwright, Novelist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 23, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Springs, Gauteng, Johannesburg, South Africa |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
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