Nenial Essay, Research Paper

Gordimer (1923-)

South African novelist and short-story writer, who received Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Gordimer’s main themes are exile, loneliness and strong political opposition towards racial segregation. She was a founding member of Congress of South African Writers, and even at the height of the apartheid regime, she never considered leaving her country.

Nadine Gordimer was born into a well-off family in Springs, Transvaal, an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg. It was the setting for Gordimer’s first novel, THE LYING DAYS (1953). Her father was a Jewish jeweller originally from Latvia and her mother of British descent. From her early childhood Gordimer witnessed the increase of white power at the expense of the rights of the black majority. Gordimer was educated in a convent school and she spent a year at Witwaterstrand University, Johannesburg without taking a degree.

Often kept at home by a mother who imagined she had a weak heart, Gordimer began writing from the age of nine and her first story, ‘Come Again Tomorrow’, appeared in the Johannesburg magazine Forum when she was fifteen. By her twenties Gordimer had had stories published in many of the local magazines and in 1951 the New Yorker accepted a story, publishing her ever since.

From her first collection of short stories, FACE TO FACE (1949), which is not listed in some of her biographies, Gordimer has revealed the effects of alienation of racies on society. It was followed by THE SOFT VOICE OF THE SERPENT (1952), and novel The Lying Days (1953), which exhibited Gordimer’s unsentimental technique, already hallmark of her narrative. The story was based largely on the author’s own life and depicted a white girl who attempts to escape the racism of a small-town life. Other works in the 1950s and 1960s include A WORLD OF STRANGERS (1958), OCCASION FOR LOVING (1963), and THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD (1966). In these novels Gordimer studies the master-servant relations characteristic of South African life, spiritual and sexual paranoias of colonialism, and the political responsibilities of privileged white South Africans.

“A line in a statute book has more authority than the claims of one man’s love or another’s. All claims of natural feeling are over-ridden alike by a line in a statute book that takes no account of humanness, that recognises neither love nor respect nor jealousy nor rivalry nor compassion nor hate – nor any human attitude where there are black and white together. What Boaz felt towards Ann; what Gideon felt towards Ann, what Ann felt about Boaz, what she felt for Gideon – all this that was real and rooted in life was void before the clumsy words that reduced the delicacy and towering complexity of living to a race theory…” (from Occasion for Loving)

Occasion for Loving was concerned with the ‘line in a statute book’ – South Africa’s cruel racial law. In the story an illicit love affair between a black man and a white woman ends bitterly. Ann Davis is married to a gentle Jew called Boaz Davis, a dedicated scholar who has travelled all over the country in search of African music. Gideon Shibalo, a talented painter, is black, he has a marriage and several affairs behind. The liberal Mrs Jessie Stilwell is a reluctant hostess to the law-breaking lovers. Boaz, the cuckold, is on the side of the struggling South African black majority, and Ann plays with two men’s emotions.

Gordimer won early international recognition for her short stories and novels. THE CONSERVATIONIST (1974) juxtaposed wealthy white South African world with the rituals and mythology of Zulus. BURGER’S DAUGHTER (1979), written during the aftermath of Soweto uprising. In the story a daughter analyzes her relationship to her father. JULY’S PEOPLE (1981) was a futuristic novel about a white family feeing from war-torn Johannesburg into the country. Gordimer’s early short story collections include SIX FEET OF THE COUNTRY (1956), NOT FOR PUBLICATION (1965) and LIVINGSTONE’S COMPANIONS (1971).

Since 1948 Gordimer has lived in Johannesburg and taught in the USA in several universities during the 1960s and ’70s. She has written books of non-fiction on South African subjects and made television documentaries, notably collaborating with her son Hugo Cassirer on the television film Choosing Justice: Allan Boesak. In THE HOUSE GUN (1998) Gordimer explored the problems of the violence ridden post-apartheid society through a murder trial. Two white privileged liberals, Harald and Claudia Lindgard, face the fact that their architect-son, Duncan, has killed his friend Carl Jesperson. Where does it lead, when violence becomes the common hell?

For further reading: The Novels of Nadine Gordimer by Stephen Clingman (1986); The Novels of Nadine Gordimer by John Cooke; Nadine Gordimer by Christopher Heywood; Critical Essays on Nadine Gordimer, ed. by Rowland Smith (1990); Nadine Gordimer by Dominic Head (1994); Rereading Nadine Gordimer by Kathrin Wagner (1994) – Note 1: Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter (1979) was banned after the Soweto uprising, Andr? Brink’s Looking on Darkness (1974) was banned by the authorities. Also J.M. Coetzee have explored in his works the effects of apartheid – all three are among the best-known white South African writers. – Note 2: Nadine Gordimer rejected in 1998 the candidacy for Orange Award, because the award was restircted to woman writers. – Only nine women have received (1901-1997) the Nobel Prize for literature: Selma Lagerlof, Sigrid Undset, Grazia Deledda, Pearl S.Buck, Gabriela Mistral, Nelly Sachs, Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, Wislawa Szymborska

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 FACE TO FACE, 1949

 THE SOFT VOICES OF THE SERPENT, 1952

 THE LYING DAYS, 1953

 SIX FEET OF THE COUNTRY, 1956

 A WORLD OF STRANGERS, 1958 – Vieraat toisilleen

 FRIDAY’S FOOTPRINT ANDOTHER STORIES, 1960

 OCCASION FOR LOVING, 1963 – Rakkaus kielletty

 NOT FOR PUBLICATION, 1965

 LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD, 1966

 ed.: SOUTH AFRICAN WRITING TODAY, 1967 (with L. Abrahams)

 GUEST OF HONOUR, 1970

 LIVINGSTONE’S COMPANIONS, 1971

 THE BLACK INTERPRETERS, 1973

 THE CONSERVATIONIST, 1974

 SOME MONDAY FOR SURE, 1976

 BURGER’S DAUGHTER, 1979 – Burgerin tyt?r

 NO PLACE LIKE, 1979

 A SOLDIER’S EMBRANCE, 1980

 TOWN AND COUNTRY LOVERS, 1980

 JULY’S PEOPLE, 1981 – Palvelija ja herra

 SOMETHING OUT THERE, 1984

 LIFETIMES: UNDER APARTHEID, 1986

 A SPORT OF NATURE, 1987 – Luonnonoikku

 THE ESSENTIAL GESTURE, 1988

 MY SON’S STORY, 1990 – Poikani tarina

 CRIMES OF CONSCIENCE, 1991

 JUMP, AND OTHER STORIES, 1991 – Hyppy ja muita novelleja

 WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN? 1992

 NONE TO ACCOMPANY ME, 1994 – Ei seuraa matkalleni

 WRITING AND BEING, 1995

 THE HOUSE GUN, 1998

Gordimerilta on suomennettu my?s mm. novellivalikoima Perjantain jalanj?lki.