Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimerwas a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity"...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 November 1923
law white judging
In a democracy - even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-?litist one - the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.
limits life-span
Music has no limits of a life-span.
writing discovery voyages
Writing is always a voyage of discovery.
eras consciousness certain
In a certain sense a writer is 'selected' by his subject - his subject being the consciousness of his own era.
writing thinking work-out
a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.
writing needs made
I never talk about what I'm writing about currently, never. It's private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.
zoos eagles prison
The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.
humanity faces slave
It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
essentials faculty androgynous
when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.
white firsts would-be
If one will always have to feel white first, and African second, it would be better not to stay on in Africa
looks would-be canyons
Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.
survival different wagers
In various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.
tension standing-apart standing
The tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.
genius censorship fragments
Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.