Nadine Gordimer (1923- ). South Africa.

A novelist, short story writer, critic, essayist, and editor, Nadine Gordimer is one of South Africa's preeminent authors, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Born in South Africa in 1923 she was raisedin a segregated town outside Johannesburg and has remained in South Africa throughout her career. Drawing on South African political conditions for her works' essential themes, Gordimer focuses principally on the complex human tensions that result from apartheid. Praised for her authentic portrayalsof black African culture, she is also recognized for using precise details to "evoke both the physical landscape of South Africa and the human predicaments of a racially polarized society." One of her most compelling achievements has been to give the world an understanding of the terrible cost and effect of racism in her country, going beyond what journalism and the media can relate.

Her political activism grew over a span of years from secret meetings with ANC members, to becoming a member, and subsequently to her steadfast and courageous support of the group, which now heads the government. In1987 she helped found the Congress of South African Writers, ninety percent of whose members are black. Three of her books were banned in South Africa, including The Late Bourgeois World (1966) and Burger's Daughter(1979). A Guest of Honour (1970), perhaps her finest work, received the James Toit Black Memorial Prize, while The Conservationist (1974)was awarded the Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction. More recent works include the critically acclaimed A Sport of Nature (1987) and My Son'sStory (1990).

Her short stories, of equal merit, portray "individuals who struggle to avoid, confront, or change the conditions under which they live."Her early short stories were published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Yale Review. Not for Publication and Other Stories (1965) and Livingstone's Companions (1971) portray common people defying apartheid in their everyday lives. In her most recent Jumpand Other Stories (1991) Gordimer "continues her exploration ofhow apartheid insulates the daily lives of ordinary blacks and whites."(PM)

Not for Publication and Other Stories. 1965. New York: Viking Press.
The Late Bourgeois World. 1966. New York: Viking Press.
A Guest of Honour. 1970. New York: Viking Press.
Livingstone's Companions. 1971. New York: Viking Press.
The Conservationist. 1974. New York: Viking Press.
Burger's Daughter. 1979. New York: Viking Press.
A Sport of Nature. 1987. New York: Knopf.
My Son's Story. 1990. Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip and Johannesburg, South Africa: Taurus.
Jump and Other Stories. 1991. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

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