Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity". Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as ''

Burger's Daughter ''Burger's Daughter'' is a political and historical novel by the South African Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Nadine Gordimer, first published in the United Kingdom in June 1979 by Jonathan Cape. The book was expected to be banned in South Af ...

'' and ''

July's People ''July's People'' is a 1981 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It is set in a near-future version of South Africa where apartheid is ended through a civil war. Gordimer wrote the book before the end of apartheid as her prediction ...

'' were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

during the days when the organization was banned, and gave

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the ...

advice on his famous 1964 defence speech at the trial which led to his conviction for life. She was also active in

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

causes.

Early life

Gordimer was born near Springs, Gauteng, an

East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. The region extends from Alberton in the west to Nigel in the east, and south down to Nigel. It includ ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

town outside

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

. She was the second daughter of her parents. Her father, Isidore Gordimer, was a

Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent ...

immigrant watchmaker from Žagarė (then

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

, now

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

), and her mother, Hannah "Nan" (Myers) Gordimer, was from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Her mother was from an assimilated family of Jewish origins; Gordimer was raised in a secular household.

Family background

Gordimer's early interest in racial and economic inequality in South Africa was shaped in part by her parents. Her father's experience as a refugee from Tsarist Russia helped form Gordimer's political identity, but he was neither an activist nor particularly sympathetic toward the experiences of black people under apartheid.A Writer's Life: Nadine Gordimer
, ''Telegraph'', 3 April 2006. Conversely, Gordimer saw activism by her mother, whose concern about the poverty and discrimination faced by black people in South Africa led her to found a crèche for black children. Gordimer also witnessed government repression first-hand as a teenager; the police raided her family home, confiscating letters and diaries from a servant's room. Gordimer was educated at a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

convent school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syst ...

, but was largely home-bound as a child because her mother, for "strange reasons of her own", did not put her into school (apparently, she feared that Gordimer had a weak heart). Home-bound and often isolated, she began writing at an early age, and published her first stories in 1937 at the age of 15.Nadine Gordimer
''Guardian Unlimited'' (last visited 25 January 2007). 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. At the age of 16, she had her first adult fiction published.Nadine Gordimer: ''A Sport of Nature''
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.

Career

Gordimer studied for a year at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she mixed for the first time with fellow professionals across the

colour bar Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

. She also became involved in the Sophiatown renaissance. She did not complete her degree, but moved to

in 1948, where she lived thereafter. While taking classes in Johannesburg, 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, and bringing Gordimer's work to a much larger public. Gordimer, who said she believed the

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

was the literary form for our age, continued to publish short stories in the ''New Yorker'' and other prominent literary journals. Her first publisher, Lulu Friedman, was the wife of the Parliamentarian

Bernard Friedman Bernard Friedman (1896 – 1984) was a South African surgeon, politician, author, and businessman who co-founded the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. Biography Education, Medical Training and Role in WW2 He was educated at Pretoria Boys ...

, and it was at their house, "Tall Trees" in First Avenue, Lower Houghton, Johannesburg, that Gordimer met other anti-apartheid writers. Gordimer's first novel, '' The Lying Days'', was published in 1953.

Activism and professional life

The arrest of her best friend,

Bettie du Toit Bettie du Toit Order of Luthuli, OLS (also Elizabeth Sophia Honman, born July 15, 1910, in Transvaal Province, Union of South Africa, died January 31, 2002, in Johannesburg, South Africa) was a trade unionist and Anti-Apartheid Movement, anti-ap ...

, in 1960 and the

Sharpeville massacre The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng). After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd ...

spurred Gordimer's entry into the anti-apartheid movement. Thereafter, she quickly became active in South African politics, and was close friends with

's defence attorneys ( Bram Fischer and

George Bizos George Bizos ( el, Γιώργος Μπίζος; 14 November 19279 September 2020) was a Greek-South African human rights lawyer who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa. He was noted for representing Nelson Mandela during the Rivonia T ...

) during his 1962 trial. She also helped Mandela edit his famous speech "

I Am Prepared to Die "I Am Prepared to Die" is the name given to the three-hour speech given by Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964 from the dock of the defendant at the Rivonia Trial. The speech is so titled because it ends with the words "it is an ideal for which I ...

", given from the defendant's dock at the trial. When Mandela was released from prison in 1990, she was one of the first people he wanted to see. During the 1960s and 1970s, she continued to live in

, although she occasionally left for short periods of time to teach at several universities in the United States. She had begun to achieve international literary recognition, receiving her first major literary award, the W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award, in 1961. Throughout this time, Gordimer continued to demand through both her writing and her activism that South Africa re-examine and replace its long-held policy of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

. During this time, the South African government banned several of her works, two for lengthy periods of time. '' The Late Bourgeois World'' was Gordimer's first personal experience with censorship; it was banned in 1976 for a decade by the South African government.Jonathan Steele,
White magic
, ''The Guardian'' (London), 27 October 2001.Gail Caldwell,

''The Boston Globe'', 4 October 1991. ''

A World of Strangers ''A World of Strangers'' is a 1958 novel by South African novelist and Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. The novel included mixed reviews, drawing criticism for its pedantic explanation of Gordimer's worldview. The novel was banned in South Africa ...

'' was banned for twelve years. Other works were censored for lesser amounts of time. ''

'', published in June 1979, was banned one month later. The Publications Committee's Appeal Board reversed the censorship of ''Burger's Daughter'' three months later, determining that the book was too one-sided to be subversive.Radiation, Race, and Molly Bloom: Nadine Gordimer Talks with ''BookForum''
, BookForum, Feb / March 2006. Gordimer responded to this decision in ''Essential Gesture'' (1988), pointing out that the board banned two books by black authors at the same time it unbanned her own work. ''

'' was also banned under apartheid, and faced censorship under the post-apartheid government as well.BBC News,
South Africa reinstates authors
, 22 April 2001. In 2001, a provincial education department temporarily removed ''July's People'' from the school reading list, along with works by other anti-apartheid writers,
", News24.com, 19 April 2001. describing ''July's People'' as "deeply racist, superior and patronizing"—a characterization that Gordimer took as a grave insult, and that many literary and political figures protested. In South Africa, she joined the

when it was still listed as an illegal organization by the South African government.Donald Morrison,
Nadine Gordimer
, ''Time Magazine'', 60 Years of Heroes (2006). While never blindly loyal to any organization, Gordimer saw the ANC as the best hope for reversing South Africa's 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 to aid their escape from arrest by the government, and she 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 Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick Lekota (born 13 August 1948) is a South African politician, who currently serves as the President and Leader of the Congress of the People since 16 December 2008. Previously as a member of the African National Congress, ...

, etc.) Throughout these years she also regularly took part in anti-apartheid demonstrations in South Africa, and traveled internationally speaking out against South African apartheid and discrimination and political repression. Her works began achieving literary recognition early in her career, with her first international recognition in 1961, followed by numerous literary awards throughout the ensuing decades. Literary recognition for her accomplishments culminated with the Nobel Prize for Literature on 3 October 1991, which noted that Gordimer "through her magnificent epic writing has—in the words of Alfred Nobel—been of very great benefit to humanity". Gordimer's activism was not limited to the struggle against apartheid. She resisted

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

and state control of information, and fostered the literary arts. She refused to let her work be aired by the South African Broadcasting Corporation because it was controlled by the apartheid government.Christopher S. Wren,
Former Censors Bow Coldly to Apartheid Chronicler
, ''New York Times'', 6 October 1991. Gordimer also served on the steering committee of South Africa's Anti-Censorship Action Group. A founding member of the Congress of South African Writers, Gordimer was also active in South African letters and international literary organizations. She was Vice President of

International PEN PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internatio ...

. In the post-apartheid 1990s and 21st century, Gordimer was active in the HIV/AIDS movement, addressing a significant public health crisis in South Africa. In 2004, she organized about 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.Agence France-Presse
"Nobel laureates join battle against AIDS"
1 December 2004. On this matter, she was critical of the South African government, noting in 2004 that she approved of everything President Thabo Mbeki had done except his stance on AIDS.Nadine Gordimer and Anthony Sampson
Letter to ''The New Review of Books''
16 November 2000. In 2005, Gordimer went on lecture tours and spoke on matters of foreign policy and discrimination beyond South Africa. For instance, in 2005, when Fidel Castro fell ill, Gordimer joined six other Nobel prize winners in a public letter to the United States warning it not to seek to destabilize Cuba's communist government. Gordimer's resistance to discrimination extended to her even refusing to accept "shortlisting" in 1998 for the Orange Prize, because the award recognizes only women writers. Gordimer also taught at the Massey College of the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

as a lecturer in 2006.

Personal life

In 2006, Gordimer was attacked in her home by robbers, sparking outrage in the country. Gordimer apparently refused to move into a gated complex, against the advice of some friends. In a 1979–80 interview Gordimer identified herself as an atheist, but added: "I think I have a basically religious temperament, perhaps even a profoundly religious one."Jannika Hurwitt
Interview with Gordimer
''

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Ph ...

'', 88, Summer 1983. Gordimer had a daughter, Oriane (born 1950), by her first marriage in 1949 to Gerald Gavron, a local dentist, from whom she was divorced within three years. 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. Their son, Hugo, was born in 1955, and is a filmmaker in New York, with whom Gordimer collaborated on at least two documentaries.

Unauthorised biography

Ronald Suresh Roberts published a biography of Gordimer, ''No Cold Kitchen'', in 2006. She had granted Roberts interviews and access to her personal papers, with an understanding that she would authorise 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 1950s, as well as criticism of her views on the Israel–Palestine conflict. Roberts published independently, not as "authorised", and Gordimer disowned the book, accusing Roberts of breach of trust. In addition to those disagreements, Roberts criticises 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 stated that Gordimer's 1954 '' New Yorker'' essay, "A South African Childhood", was not wholly biographical and contained some fabricated events.

Death

Gordimer died in her sleep on 13 July 2014 at the age of 90.

Works, themes, and reception

Gordimer achieved lasting international recognition for her works, most of which deal with political issues, as well as the "moral and psychological tensions of her racially divided home country." Virtually all of Gordimer's works deal with themes of love and politics, particularly concerning race in South Africa. Always questioning power relations and truth, Gordimer tells stories of ordinary people, revealing moral ambiguities and choices. Her characterization is nuanced, revealed more through the choices her characters make than through their claimed identities and beliefs. She also weaves in subtle details within the characters' names.

Overview of critical works

Her first published novel, '' The Lying Days'' (1953), takes place in Gordimer's home town of Springs, Transvaal, an East Rand mining town near

. Arguably a semi-autobiographical work, ''The Lying Days'' is a

Bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...

, charting the growing political awareness of a young white woman, Helen, toward small-town life and South African racial division. 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. Davis is white, however, and 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'', and was a co-winner with

Stanley Middleton Stanley Middleton FRSL (1 August 1919 – 25 July 2009) was a British novelist. Life He was born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, in 1919 and educated at High Pavement School, Stanley Road, Nottingham, and later at University College Nottin ...

'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". 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 ''

'' is the story of a woman analysing 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 1976 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

and other anti-apartheid activists. In ''

'' (1981), she imagines a bloody South African revolution, in which white people are hunted and murdered after blacks revolt 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.David Medalie, "'The Context of the Awful Event': Nadine Gordimer's ''The House Gun''", ''Journal of Southern African Studies'', v.25, n.4 (December 1999), pp. 633–644. Gordimer's award-winning 2002 novel, ''

The Pickup ''The Pickup'' is a 2001 novel by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. 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 re ...

'', 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.

J.M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in ...

br>Review of ''The Pickup'' and ''Loot and Other Stories''
nytimes.com, 23 October 2003.Sue Kossew,
Review of Nadine Gordimer, ''The Pickup''
", ''Quodlibet'', v.1, February 2005.Anthony York,

" (book review), Salon.com, 6 December 2001. '' Get a Life'', written in 2005 after the death of her long-time spouse, Reinhold Cassirer, is the story of a man undergoing treatment for a life-threatening disease. While clearly drawn from 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. ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critic J. R. Ramakrishnan, who noted a similarity with author Mia Alvar, wrote that Gordimer wrote about "long-suffering spouses and (the) familial enablers of political men" in her fiction.

Honours and awards

* W. H. Smith Commonwealth Literary Award for ''Friday's Footprint'' (1961) * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for '' A Guest of Honour'' (1972) * Booker Prize for '' The Conservationist'' (1974) * Central News Agency Literary Award for ''The Conservationist'' (1974) * Grand Aigle d'Or (France) (1975) * Orange Prize shortlist; she declined * Central News Agency Literary Award for ''

'' (1979) * Central News Agency Literary Award for ''

'' (1981) *

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from th ...

Neil M. Gunn Fellowship (1981) * Modern Language Association Honorary Fellow (1984) * Rome Prize (1984) * Premio Malaparte (Italy) (1985) *

Nelly Sachs Prize The Nelly Sachs Prize (German: ''Nelly Sachs Preis'') is a literary prize given every two years by the German city of Dortmund. Named after the Jewish poet and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs, the prize includes a cash award of €15,000. It honour ...

(Germany) (1985) * Bennett Award (United States) (1987) * Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for '' A Sport of Nature'' (1988) * Inducted as an honorary member into

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

(1988) * Central News Agency Literary Award for ''

My Son's Story ''My Son's Story'' is the ninth novel by South African novelist Nadine Gordimer. It was written towards the end of the State of Emergency and first published in 1990. The very next year, Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and th ...

'' (1990) * Nobel Prize for Literature (1991) * International Botev Prize Laureate (1996) *

Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...

for the Best Book from Africa for ''

'' (2002) * Booker Prize longlist for ''The Pickup'' (2001) * Officier of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleo ...

(2007)Celean Jacobson
"Nadine Gordimer awarded Legion of Honour"
, ''Mail & Guardian Online'', 1 April 2007. *

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

, Member (2008) * American Academy of Arts and Letters, Honorary Member (1979) *

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, Honorary Member (1980) * Royal Society of Literature, Fellow * Congress of South African Writers, Patron * Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Commander * 15

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad h ...

s * Senior Fellow, Massey College of the

* Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa (2009) * Order of the Aztec Eagle

Tribute

On 20 November 2015,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

celebrated her 92nd birthday with a Google Doodle.

Bibliography

Novels

* '' The Lying Days'' (1953) * ''

'' (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 * ''

'' (1979) * ''

'' (1981) * '' A Sport of Nature'' (1987) * ''

'' (1990) * '' None to Accompany Me'' (1994) * ''The House Gun'' (1998) * ''

'' (2001) * '' Get a Life'' (2005) * '' No Time Like the Present'' (2012)

Plays

* ''

The First Circle ''In the First Circle'' (russian: link=no, italics=yes, В круге первом, V kruge pervom; also published as ''The First Circle'') is a novel by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, released in 1968. A more complete version of the boo ...

'', in ''Six One-act Plays by South African Authors'' (1949)

Short fiction

Collections

* '' Face to Face'' (1949) * '' The Soft Voice of the Serpent'' (1952) * '' Six Feet of the Country'' (1956) * '' Which New Era Would That Be?'' (1956) * '' Friday's Footprint'' (1960) * '' Not for Publication'' (1965) * '' Livingstone's Companions'' (1970) * ''Selected Stories'' (1975) *''Some Monday for Sure (1976)'' * '' No Place Like: Selected Stories'' (1978) * '' A Soldier's Embrace'' (1980) * '' Town and Country Lovers'' (1982), published by Sylvester & Orphanos * '' Something Out There'' (1984) * '' Correspondence Course and other Stories'' (1984) * '' The Moment Before the Gun Went Off'' (1988) * ''Once Upon a Time'' (1989) * ''Crimes of Conscience'' (1991) * '' Jump: And Other Stories'' (1991) * '' Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972'' (1992) * '' Something for the Time Being 1950-1972'' (1992) * '' Loot and Other Stories'' (2003) * '' Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black'' (2007) * A Beneficiary (2007) * '' Life Times: Stories'' (2011)

Essays, reporting and other contributions

* ''

What Happened to Burger's Daughter or How South African Censorship Works ''What Happened to Burger's Daughter or How South African Censorship Works'' is a 1980 collection of essays by South African novelist Nadine Gordimer and others. The book is about the South African government's banning and subsequent unbanning ...

'' (1980) * '' The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places'' (1988) * '' The Black Interpreters'' (1973) * '' Writing and Being: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures'' (1995) * ''Living in Hope and History'' (1999) *

Edited works

* '' Telling Tales'' (2004) * ''Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950–2008'' (2010)

Other

* "The Gordimer Stories" (1981–82) – adaptations of seven short stories; she wrote screenplays for four of them * '' 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) Source:

Reviews

Girdwood, Alison (1984), ''Gordimer's South Africa'', a review of ''Something Out There'', in Parker, Geoff (ed.), '' Cencrastus'' No. 18, Autumn 1984, p. 50,

References

External links

* *
Short Stories by Nadine Gordimer on the Web
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordimer, Nadine 1923 births 2014 deaths Nobel laureates in Literature South African Nobel laureates Women Nobel laureates Booker Prize winners Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Jewish activists Jewish South African anti-apartheid activists Jewish atheists Jewish women writers Recipients of the Legion of Honour People from Springs, Gauteng South African atheists South African dramatists and playwrights South African Jews South African people of British-Jewish descent South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent South African women novelists South African women short story writers South African short story writers 20th-century South African novelists 20th-century South African women writers 21st-century South African novelists 21st-century South African women writers Women dramatists and playwrights White South African anti-apartheid activists 20th-century dramatists and playwrights 20th-century short story writers 21st-century short story writers Columbia University faculty The New Yorker people University of Toronto faculty

Early life

Family background

Career

Activism and professional life

Personal life

Unauthorised biography

Death

Works, themes, and reception

Overview of critical works

Honours and awards

Tribute

Bibliography

Novels

Plays

Short fiction

Collections

Essays, reporting and other contributions

Edited works

Other

Reviews

See also

References

Further reading

Brief biographies

Obituaries

Critical studies

Articles

Short reviews

Speeches and interviews

Biographies

Research archives

External links