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Revision as of 13:43, 3 April 2007 by Lquilter (talk | contribs) (→Early adulthood and literary career: more)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| Nadine Gordimer | |
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| Born | (1923-11-23) November 23, 1923 (age 101) Springs, Gauteng, Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Occupation | Playwright, Novelist |
| Nationality | South African |
Nadine Gordimer (born 20 November 1923) is a South African novelist and writer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in literature and 1974 Booker Prize. She was awarded the Legion of Honour, France's highest award, in March 2007.
Early life
She was born in Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg, the daughter of Isidore and Nan Gordimer. Her parents were both Jewish immigrants, her father a watchmaker from Lithuania near the Latvian border, and her mother from London. Gordimer's early concern for social justice and the racial inequality suffered by black people in South Africa was shaped in part by her parents. Her father's experience as a refugee from Jewish oppression in czarist Russia helped form Gordimer's awareness of social injustice, but he was himself neither an activist nor particularly sympathetic toward the plight of black people in South Africa. Gordimer saw activism by her mother, however, who, concerned about racial injustice and impoverishment of black people, founded a crèche for black children. Gordimer also experienced at close hand the oppression the government would visit on its black citizens, when as a teenager the police raided her family home, confiscating letters and diaries from a servant's room.
Gordimer was educated at a Catholic convent school, and was largely home-bound as a child because of her mother's "strange reasons of her own", apparently, fears that Gordimer had a weak heart. She began writing at an early age, and published her first stories in 1937 at the age of fifteen. Her first published work was a short story for children, "The Quest for Seen Gold," which appeared in the Children's Sunday Express in 1937; "Come Again Tomorrow," another children's story, appeared in Forum around the same time.
Early adulthood and literary career
Gordimer studied for a year at Witwatersrand University but did not complete her degree. Instead, she continued to write, publishing mostly in local South African magazines. She collected many of these early stories in Face to Face, published in 1949.
In 1951, the New Yorker accepted Gordimer's story "A Watcher of the Dead", beginning a long relationship. Gordimer, who has said she believes the short story is the literary form for our age, has continued to publish short stories, often in the New Yorker as well as other prominent literary journals.
Gordimer's first novel, The Lying Days, was published in 1953. In 1954, she married Reinhold Cassirer, a highly respected art dealer who established the South African Sotheby's and later ran his own gallery; their "wonderful marriage" lasted until his death from emphysema in 2001. It was her second marriage and his third. Their son, Hugo, was born in 1955, and is today a filmmaker in New York, with whom Gordimer has collaborated on at least two documentaries. Gordimer also had a daughter during this time.
Recognition and political engagement
In 1960, Gordimer was politicized by the arrest of her best friend, Bettie du Toit. Thereafter, she quickly became increasingly active in South African politics, and was close friends with Nelson Mandela's defense attorneys (Bram Fischer and George Bizos) during his 1962 trial. When Mandela was freed in 1990, Gordimer was one of the first people he wanted to see.
During the 1960s and 1970s she taught at several universities in the United States, continued writing, and continued to stay active in South African politics. She was first recognized internationally for her writing in 1961, with the W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award from England. That award was followed by numerous others during the 1970s and 1980s, including the Booker Prize in 1974.
Throughout this time, Gordimer continued to demand that South Africa re-examine and replace its long held policy of apartheid, and she worked to end apartheid both through her writing and through activism.
In South Africa, she joined the African National Congress when it was still listed as an illegal organisation by the apartheid regime. While never blindly loyal, Gordimer saw the ANC as the best hope for addressing South Africa's most significant social injustice, its treatment of black citizens. Rather than simply criticizing the organization for its perceived flaws, she advocated joining it to address them. She hid ANC leaders in her own home when they were being hunted by the apartheid regime, and she has said that the proudest day of her life was when she testified at the 1986 Delmas treason trial on behalf of 22 South African anti-apartheid activists. (See Simon Nkoli, Mosiuoa Lekota, etc.) During this time she also regularly took part in demonstrations in South Africa against the apartheid regime, and traveled internationally speaking out against South African apartheid, as well as discrimination and political repression elsewhere.
After an intense period of activim, her international recognition culminated in the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, which noted that Gordimer "through her magnificent epic writing has — in the words of Alfred Nobel — been of very great benefit to humanity".
Into the 1990s and 21st century, Gordimer has continued to remain active. She has been active in HIV/AIDS, which is a significant public health crisis in South Africa. In 2004, she organized some 20 major writers to contribute short fiction for Telling Tales, a fundraising book for South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, which lobbies for government funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and care. On this matter, she has been critical of the current South African government, noting that she "approves" of everything President Mbeki has done except his stance on AIDS.
Gordimer has resisted any form of discrimination, to the extent of even refusing to accept "shortlisting" for the Orange Prize, because it is an award that recognizes only women writers. In 2005, when Fidel Castro fell ill, Gordimer joined six other Nobel prizewinners in a public letter to the United States warning it to not seek to destabilize the Cuban government. A founding member of the Congress of South African Writers, Gordimer has also been active in South African letters and international literary organizations. She has been Vice President of International PEN.
Recent Events
Gordimer was the subject of a 2006 biography by Ronald Suresh Roberts, which she repudiated after its publication.
Gordimer today lives in Johannesburg, a city with a high crime rate, and her home is protected by high-tech security equipment. Even so, she was robbed on October 26, 2006 by four black men in her home in the Parktown suburb, then assaulted after she refused to hand over her wedding ring. Gordimer and her domestic worker were locked in a storeroom during the daytime attack. She later said the four men responsible were products of a society grappling with the legacy of South Africa's past, and suggested that providing education, training and employment was the way to reduce crime, not more police.
Gordimer's works and themes
Virtually all of Gordimer's works deal with themes of love and politics, particularly the politics of racial oppression as experienced in South Africa.
Bibliography
Fiction
- The Lying Days (1953)
- A World of Strangers (1958)
- Occasion for Loving (1963)
- The Late Bourgeois World (1966)
- A Guest of Honour (1970)
- The Conservationist (1974) - Joint winner of the Booker prize in 1974
- Burger's Daughter (1979)
- July's People (1982)
- A Sport of Nature (1987)
- My Son's Story (1990)
- None to Accompany Me (1994)
- The House Gun (1998)
- The Pickup (2001)
- Get a Life (2005)
Short story collections
- Face to Face (1949)
- Town and Country Lovers
- The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952)
- Six feet of the Country (1956)
- Not for Publication (1965)
- Livingstone's Companions (1970)
- Selected Stories (1975)
- No Place Like: Selected Stories (1978)
- A Soldier's Embrace (1980)
- Something Out There (1984)
- Correspondence Course and other Stories (1984)
- The Moment Before the Gun Went Off (1988)
- Jump: And Other Stories (1991)
- Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972 (1992)
- Something for the Time Being 1950-1972 (1992)
Plays
- The First Circle (1949) pub. in Six One-Act Plays
Essays
Other works
- On the Mines (1973)
- Lifetimes Under Apartheid (1986)
- "Choosing for Justice: Allan Boesak" (1983) (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)
- "Berlin and Johannesburg: The Wall and the Colour Bar" (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)
Adaptations of Gordimer's works
- "The Gordimer Stories" (1981-82) - adaptations of seven of Gordimer's short stories; she wrote screenplays for four of them
Recognition
Gordimer has achieved lasting international recognition for her works, most of which deal with the moral and psychological tensions of her racially divided home country. Even as the apartheid regime banned three of her books, she was winning international recognition for her work. She was first recognized internationally with the W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award (England) in 1961, followed by numerous recognitions across the world, including the Booker Prize in 1974 and, most recently, the Legion of Honour in 2007. Gordimer's international recognition culminated with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.
List of awards and honors
- W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award (England) (1961)
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize (England) (1972)
- Booker Prize for her novel The Conservationist (1974)
- CNA Prize, South Africa (1974, 1975, 1980)
- 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)
- Nobel Prize for Literature (1991)
- Legion of Honour (France) (2007)
- Fellow, Royal Society of Literature
- 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)
References
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- "A Writer's Life: Nadine Gordimer", April 3, 2006, Telegraph.
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- "A Writer's Life: Nadine Gordimer", April 3, 2006, Telegraph.
- "Nadine Gordimer", Guardian Unlimited (last visited Jan. 25, 2007).
- New Yorker, June 9, 1951.
- "Nadine Gordimer", Guardian Unlimited, at http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,96530,00.html .
- "A writer's life: Nadine Gordimer", London Telegraph, April 6, 2003.
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Donald Morrison, "Nadine Gordimer", Time Magazine 60 Years of Heroes (2006); Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.).
- Donald Morrison, "Nadine Gordimer", Time Magazine 60 Years of Heroes (2006); Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.)
- Per Wästberg, Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience, April 26, 2001. (Nobel Prize article.)
- The Nobel Prize in Literature 1991, Nobel Prize Laureate biography.
- Agence France-Presse, Nobel laureates join battle against AIDS, Dec. 1, 2004.
- Agence-France-Presse, Nobel laureates join battle against AIDS, Dec. 1, 2004; Gordimer and literary giants fight AIDS, iafrica.com, 2004 Nov. 29. See also Nadine Gordimer and Anthony Sampson, Letter to The New Review of Books, Nov. 16, 2000.
- Rachel Donadio, "Nadine Gordimer and the Hazards of Biography", New York Times, Dec. 31, 2006.
- "Gordimer's sorrow for men who robbed her". Guardian Unlimited. November 2, 2006.
- Nadine Gordimer awarded Legion of Honour, Mail & Guardian Online, April 1, 2007.
- Nadine Gordimer awarded Legion of Honour, Mail & Guardian Online, April 1, 2007.
Further reading
- Literary biography at LitWeb (2003)
- 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)
- Nadine Gordimer, Nancy Topping Bazin, and Marilyn Dallman Seymour, Conversations with Nadine Gordimer (1990)
- Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech (1991)
- Dominic Head, Nadine Gordimer (1994)
- Christopher Heywood, Nadine Gordimer (1983)
- Ronald Suresh Roberts, No Cold Kitchen: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer (2005)
- 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)
See also
External links
- Template:Contemporary writers
- Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles
- 1968 article on the difficulties of writing under apartheid
- reviews on and articles by Nadine Gordimer in the New York Times
- LitWeb.net: Nadine Gordimer Biography
- 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)
