She grew up reading the great realists of 19th- and early 20th-century fiction, and later would continue to cite the Russians in particular (Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky) as her “masters”, but she also developed a fine eye and sophisticated taste for the best in all the literature she encountered. In 1990, she also published her novel, My son’s story. This event initiated Gordimer's participation in the anti-apartheid movement. The House Gun (1998) explores, through a murder trial, the complexities of violence-ridden post-apartheid South Africa. Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (born 1923) was the Nobel Prize winning author of short stories and novels reflecting the disintegration of South African society. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article. Although many of Gordimer’s books were banned by the Apartheid regime in South Africa, they were widely read around the world and served almost as a testament over the years of the changing responses to Apartheid in South Africa. When this biography of Nadine Gordimer was published in South Africa in 2005, author Ronald Suresh Roberts drew flak from the writer he had set out to profile. Biography of Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 – 13 July 2014) was a South African writer, Nobel Prize winner, and an outspoken anti-apartheid activist. Friday's Footprint. Nadine Gordimer and the Hazards of Biography Livingstone's Companions. Nadine was also a prominent member of the Anti-Censorship Action Group and won the CNA Literary Award four times, the last time in 1991. Gordimer is survived by her two children, Hugo and Oriane Ophelia. The Late Bourgeois World. The Conservationist. Born on November 20, 1923, in Springs, Gauteng, Gordimer was raised by a Jewish immigrant family. She opened a daycare for Black children. Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, Transvaal (now Gauteng), an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg in 1923. Though she was critical of some of the ANC’s policies, she saw it as the best option for leading Black citizens to self-determination. Apartheid became the central issue of Gordimer’s political thought and writing during this period; she demanded that South Africa examine itself. She is also known for the the critically-acclaimed works, The Pickup and A Sport of Nature. Biography. The academy had reportedly passed over the then 67-year-old Gordimer several times. Privileged Upbringing in Segregated South AfricaNadine Gordimer, the daughter of Jewish immigrants, was born in Springs, a mining town forty miles outside Johannesburg, in Transvaal, South Africa, on November 20, 1923. London: Jonathan Cape. Nadine Gordimer Biography, Life, Interesting Facts Nadine Gordimer was born on November 1923 near Johannesburg, South Africa. The Conservationist is Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer’s sixth novel, published in 1974. Gordimer travelled extensively and in addition to her fictional stories, she had written non-fiction on South African subjects and made television documentaries, collaborating with her son Hugo Cassirer on the television film Choosing Justice: Allan Boesak. She edited Mandela’s famous speech, "I Am Prepared to Die," delivered from the defendant's dock at the trial. She never considered going into exile but in the 1960s and 1970’s she lectured at universities in the United States of America (USA) for short periods. London: Gollancz, 1956. She testified at the 1986 Delmas Treason Trial on behalf of 22 South African anti-apartheid activists. She remained in South Africa, living in Johannesburg from 1948 onwards. My Son's Story. Her 1979 novel, Burger's Daughter, was written during the aftermath of the Soweto uprising, and was banned, along with other books she had written. Nadine Gordimer (1923 - 2014) Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa. Mon 14 Jul 2014 11.10 EDT. In 1949, she married Gerald Gavron (Gavronsky) and published her first collection of short stories, Face to Face in that same year. She died in her sleep. Nadine Gordimer Biography. During the Apartheid era in South Africa, she was a prominent activist for racial equality. Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 – 13 July 2014) was a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature.She was known as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity". She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. 1974. Has lived all her life, and continues to live, in South Africa. New York: The Viking Press, 1970. Nadine Gordimer, through her courageous and probing search for understanding and insight, has achieved international status as one of the finest living writers in English. She was involved in grassroots political-literary organisation, being a founder member and patron of the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW) for several years, as well as a frequent speaker at gatherings of the United Democratic Front. They divorced in 1952 and in 1954, she married Reinhold Cassirer, an art dealer who established the South African Sotheby's and ran galleries in South Africa. They had a daughter, Oriane, the following year. In 2005, she had a major fall out with her biographer, Ronald Suresh Roberts, the author of a biography, No Cold Kitchen, on her whom she later repudiated as her official biographer. Occasion for Loving. She published her first work at age fifteen and has since produced ten novels and more than 200 short stories. London: Gollancz, 1958. She served in South Africa's Anti-Censorship Action Group. She also … After the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, Gordimer continued to write about affects of Apartheid and about life in post Apartheid South Africa. Her fiction has tended to explore the effect of apartheid on the lives of South Africans, with some of her work being banned … She has been awarded fifteen honorary degrees from universities in the USA, Belgium, South Africa, and from York, Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the United Kingdom. In December 1989, she testified in mitigation for eleven United Democratic Front leaders and Vaal Civic Association activists. She published her first story at age 15. The Pickup (2001)’ is set in South Africa and Saudi Arabia, and its theme is the tragedy of forced emigration. Nadine Gordimer, (born November 20, 1923, Springs, Transvaal [now in Gauteng], South Africa—died July 13, 2014, Johannesburg), South African novelist and short-story writer whose major theme was exile and alienation. Nadine Gordimer was a Scorpio and was born in the G.I. A Soldier's Embrace. Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa in 1923. Her father, Isidore Gordimer, was a Jewish jeweller originally from Latvia and her mother, Nan Myers, was of British descent. The New York Times [Online] 4 October. – Bloomington : Indiana Univ. Her parent's influence was one of the many things that shaped her interest in racial and economic problems in South Africa. She was one of the founding members Congress of South African Writers (Cosaw) and was on the Transvaal regional executive for many years. She was born in Springs, South Africa to Jewish immigrant parents. She had initially granted Roberts access to her personal papers and interviews with the understanding that she would authorise the biography in return for a right to review the manuscript before publication. A Sport of Nature. She continued to win international awards for her work, receiving the Booker Prize for The Conservationist in 1974. She remained outspoken and politically engaged until her death on July 13, 2014. Along with her resistance to apartheid, Gordimer spoke out loudly against censorship and state control of information. She remembered the spectral presence of black workers on the margins of her world, and a burgeoning awareness of difference; she recalled also a kind of class struggle waged between her parents – her arty, upper-class mother and her lower-class father. Contemporary writers [Online]. Face to Face. Also in 1991, one of the highlights in Gordimer’s career came when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She used her home as a safe house for ANC leaders escaping persecution. She was the first South African to win the award and the first women to win in 25 years. Her father was a watchmaker, who had arrived from Lithuania when he was thirteen, and her mother was English. A Guest of Honour. She has had many of her works of literature banned due to apartheid ruling. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. On her trip to Sweden in December 1991 to collect the prize she called for continued economic sanctions against South Africa. She was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France). Gordimer remained with Cassirer until his death in 2001. Ronald Suresh Roberts published a biography of Nadine Gordimer titled No Cold Kitchen in 2006. A shop-owning family, the Gordimers were part of the white, English-speaking middle class. Her writings were about moral and racial issues in South Africa relating to apartheid. The Late Bourgeois World was banned in 1976 for a decade. A fine descriptive writer, thoughtful and sensitive, Gordimer was noted for the vivid precision of her writing about the complicated personal and social relationships in her environment: the interplay between races, racial conflict, and the pain inflicted by South Africa's unjust apartheid laws. "Town and Country Lovers" and Other Stories. In 1949, Gordimer married a Johannesburg dentist, Gerald Gavron. Nadine Gordimer has been listed as a level-4 vital article in People. Her story "A Watcher of the Dead" was published in The New Yorker in 1951, marking the beginning of her international reception. Gordimer has been awarded 10 honorary doctorates in literature from various universities around the world. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1952. Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer and political activist, was a woman deeply disturbed by the racial issues and inequalities prevalent in her country which moved her to create a body of work dealing with the issues that permeated the very fabric of the South African society. Internationally, she was openly an African National Congress (ANC) supporter even when it was banned in South Africa, yet she disdained to go into exile. July's People was banned during the apartheid period, but it also faced censorship under the post-apartheid government and was removed from school reading lists in 2001.