 |
| Gordimer |
The literary
community on Monday, July 14, 2014, received shocking news of the death of
Nobel laureate, Nadine Gordimer, who died at the age 90.
The South African literary giant until her death was a foremost
chronicler of racial apartheid and the subsequent vicissitudes of democracy.
Daily Newswatch
gathered that Gordimer’s family said she died peacefully in her sleep at her
home in Johannesburg on Sunday.
She was a daughter
of a Jewish watchmaker from Latvia and middle-class woman from Britain,
Gordimer started writing in earnest at the age of nine and produced 15 novels
as well as several volumes of short stories, non-fiction and other works. She
was published in 40 languages around the world. Her literary gaze was unsparing
on both white minority rule and the governing African National Congress (ANC).
"She cared
most deeply about South
Africa, its
culture, its people, and its ongoing struggle to realise its new
democracy," the family said. Her "proudest days", they said,
included winning the Nobel prize and testifying in the 1980s on behalf of a
group of anti-apartheid activists who had been accused of treason.
During the
liberation struggle she praised Nelson Mandela and accepted the decision of his
ANC, of which she was a member, to take up arms against the regime.
"Having lived here for 65 years, I am well aware for how long black people
refrained from violence," she said. "We white people are responsible
for it."
Gordimer worked on
biographical sketches of Mandela and his co-accused to send overseas to
publicise the Rivonia trial in 1963-64. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote of
his time in prison: "I tried to read books about South Africa or by South
African writers. I read all the unbanned novels of Nadine
Gordimer and
learned a great deal about the white liberal sensibility." She was among
the first people he met on his release in 1990.
More recently she
turned her crusading wrath on the ANC itself over proposed secrecy laws that threaten to curb freedom of
expression and put
journalists and whistleblowers in jail. Three of Gordimer's books had been
banned during apartheid. She also remained socially active and was a regular at
Johannesburg's Market Theatre until shortly before her death.
As a writer she
was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a
woman 'who through her magnificent epic writing has - the words of Alfred Nobel
- been of very great benefit to humanity'. Her principal works include A
Guest of Honour, The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People, A sport
of Nature, My Son's Story, None to Accompany Me, Jump, Why Haven't you Written:
Selected Stories 1950-1972, The Essential Gesture, On Mines and The
Black Interpreters.
Sources: The Guardian (UK), Wikipedia and Nobel Prize
No comments:
Post a Comment