“We were naive, because we focused on removing the apartheid government and never thought deeply enough about what would follow.”
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Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity".
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culture · South African writer (1923–2014) · poet · writer · novelist · playwright · short story writer · scientific editor · prose writer · also Nadine Gordimer, Gordimer
Born 20 November 1923 · Died 13 July 2014 · Q47619
69 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 5 entries
“not a European but a white African”
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“but what I was also writing about was the whole question of being displaced. The irony is that apart from Africans themselves we are all immigrants here in South Africa.”
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“[T]he isotopy of fragmentation constitutes a unifying web structurally present at the level of story, text, and narration”
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“long-suffering spouses and (the) familial enablers of political men”
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2019· 1 entry
The Guardian: Rebel, radical, relic? Nadine Gordimer is out of fashion – we must keep reading her
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2014· 16 entries
The Guardian: My hero: Nadine Gordimer by Gillian Slovo
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The Guardian: Indebted to Nadine Gordimer | @guardianletters
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The Guardian: Anthony Sampson on Nadine Gordimer: 'She was conscious of living in a land of heroes'
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer: five must-read books
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer dies aged 90
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer: evergreen, ageless and an inspiration to all writers
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer used last interview to condemn South Africa's secrecy bill
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer, novelist and anti-apartheid campaigner - a life in pictures
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer inspired Mandela – tell us about your favourite protest writers
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer obituary
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The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer: A life in quotes
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Died 2014-07-13.
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“Nadine Gordimer: Farewell to a great spirit”
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“Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.”
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“Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.”
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The South African Jewish Board of Deputies paid tribute to her, with National Chairman Mary Kluk sharing that Gordimer was “a brave, principled woman who used her remarkable literary gifts to speak out on behalf of the o
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2013· 1 entry
The Guardian: Nadine Gordimer helped me see how fiction writing can illuminate reality | Aminatta Forna
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2008· 1 entry
Gordimer defended her decision to attend a Jerusalem Writers Conference in Israel
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2006· 3 entries
In 2006, Gordimer was attacked in her home by robbers, sparking outrage in the country.
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Ronald Suresh Roberts published a biography of Gordimer titled No Cold Kitchen
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Gordimer was attacked in her home by robbers, sparking outrage in the country
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2005· 3 entries
When Fidel Castro fell ill, Gordimer joined six other Nobel prize winners in a public letter to the United States warning it not to seek to destabilise Cuba's communist government
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After the death of her long-time spouse, Reinhold Cassirer, is the story of a man undergoing treatment for a life-threatening disease
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Gordimer went on lecture tours and spoke on matters of foreign policy and discrimination beyond South Africa
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2004· 2 entries
Organised about 20 major writers to contribute short fiction for Telling Tales, a fundraising book for South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, which lobbies for government funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and care
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That she approved of everything President Thabo Mbeki had done except his stance on AIDS
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2001· 1 entry
A provincial education department temporarily removed July's People from the school reading list, along with works by other anti-apartheid writers, describing July's People as "deeply racist, superior and patronising"—a
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1998· 2 entries
“The conscience of South Africa talks about her country's new racial order”
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For the Orange Prize, because the award recognizes only women writers
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1991· 4 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature — who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature (1991).
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As the first South African and the first African female author
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Recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has
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1990· 1 entry
Was one of the first people he wanted to see
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1988· 2 entries
Awarded Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (1988).
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“The Moment Before the Gun Went Off”
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1985· 2 entries
Awarded Nelly Sachs Prize (1985).
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Writing in The New York Times, Joseph Lelyveld observed that whilst she achieved great acclaim overseas, reactions to her work in her native South Africa were "mixed":
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1983· 1 entry
Published "Letter from His Father" in The London Review of Books, a response to Franz Kafka's "Letter to His Father"
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1982· 1 entry
Seven of her short stories were adapted as short films for television by West German television makers
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Central News Agency Literary Award (1981).
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1979· 2 entries
Awarded Central News Agency Literary Award (1979).
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In a 1979-80 interview Gordimer, who was Jewish, identified as an atheist, but added: "I think I have a basically religious temperament, perhaps even a profoundly religious one." She was not involved in Jewish communal life, though both her husbands were Jewish.
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1976· 1 entry
For a decade by the South African government
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1974· 3 entries
Awarded Booker Prize for The Conservationist (1974).
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Awarded Central News Agency Literary Award (1974).
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Was shortlisted by the Nobel committee for a shared prize with Doris Lessing, and shortlisted again as one of the final five candidates for the 1975 prize
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1973· 1 entry
Was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Artur Lundkvist of the Swedish Academy's Nobel committee
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1971· 2 entries
Awarded James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1971).
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And, in common with a number of winners of this award, she was to go on to win the Booker Prize
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1966· 1 entry
Gordimer wrote an original story for The Jewish Chronicle
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1962· 1 entry
A Danish film adaptation of Gordimer's novel A World of Strangers, was released under the title Dilemma by Danish film director, Henning Carlsen, and starring Ivan Jackson, Evelyn Frank, and Marijke Mann
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1961· 2 entries
Awarded WH Smith Literary Award (1961).
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Followed by numerous literary awards throughout the ensuing decades
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1960· 1 entry
And the Sharpeville massacre spurred Gordimer's entry into the anti-apartheid movement
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1955· 2 entries
And is a filmmaker in New York, with whom Gordimer collaborated on at least two documentaries
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Their son, Hugo, was born in 1955, and is a filmmaker in New York, with whom Gordimer collaborated on at least two documentaries.
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1954· 1 entry
Married Reinhold Cassirer, a highly respected art dealer from the well-known German-Jewish Cassirer family
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1953· 1 entry
“having a picnic in a beautiful cemetery where people were buried alive.”
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1951· 2 entries
The New Yorker accepted Gordimer's story "A Watcher of the Dead", beginning a long relationship, and bringing Gordimer's work to a much larger public
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Wrote "A Watcher of the Dead" for The New Yorker
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1949· 1 entry
To Gerald Gavron (Gavronsky), a local dentist, from whom she was divorced within three years
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1923· 1 entry
Born 1923-11-20.
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