Nadine Gordimer
Awards: Booker Prize,1974 and Nobel Prize
in Literature in 1991
"The facts are always less than what really happened"
--Nadin Gordimer
Born: 20/11/1923 in Springs, Transval, near
the mining town of Johannesburg, Union
of South Africa.
Language: English
Studied: in a catholic convent school but
largely remained at home and studied, attended University of the
Witwatersrand for a year and then moved to Johannesburg in 1948
without completing a degree and has since stayed there.
Major Influence:
Milestones: Gordimer's literary works
closely follow her real life involvement in Anti-Apartheid movement
and fighting the cause of the poor and exploited Blacks in South
Africa. Racial and economic discrimination and social and state
injustice form the undercurrent of her writings. She became a
political activist and had joined African National Congress when it
was still categorized as an illegal organization by the the then South
African government. She is a founding member of Congress of South
African Writers.
Marriage: married to Gerald Gavron, a
dentist in the year 1949. The marriage lasted barely 3 years after
which she married a reputed Art Dealer Reinhold Cassirer and the
couple were together till Cassirer's death in 2001.
Jobs: was a writer and an activist.
Gordimer's short story, A watcher of the Dead, which was published in
New York in 1949 brought her larger readership and international fame.
Following this, she had a long association with the paper and many
stories were published.
Major Works: Face to Face(1949),
collection of early stories- A World of Strangers, the book was
banned for 12 years--Burger's Daughter, banned for 1 month --July's
People(1981), also banned for anti-apartheid tone--The
Conservationist, densest & most poetical of Gordimer's works; the
novel fetched her 1974 Booker Prize-- The Lying Days, a
semi-autobiographical novel.
Order Nadine Gordimer's Books below
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