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
democracy function greatest judge law law-and-lawyers laws power proof reserve respect rule unjust vigilance watch
In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-Tlitist 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.
fades
Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.
brain mind freedom-of-speech
The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.
truly-living humans human-beings
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
human-nature worst humans
Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature
limits life-span
Music has no limits of a life-span.
eras consciousness certain
In a certain sense a writer is 'selected' by his subject - his subject being the consciousness of his own era.
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
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.
lasts communist optimist
Communists are the last optimists.