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Nadine Gordimer began her writing life at a relatively young age. In 1991, that life received the ultimate recognition when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In this volume, Gordimer, who has been described by her peers as a "formidable visitor from the future", "the leviathan of South African letters" and almost always as "a gifted writer with extraordinary powers of observation, is paid homage by fellow writers from South Africa and other parts of the world. The book comprises readings, tributes, fiction, poetry, interviews and photographs which engage directly and indirectly with Gordimer's work and her still unfolding legacy. ... Read more

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This book focuses on Nadine Gordimer’s fictional depiction of South African society under the apartheid system. Through a chronological study of the pre-1994 novels and short stories, the book shows how Gordimer scrutinizes the various stages of the society from the introduction of the apartheid system in the late forties to its abolition in the early nineties.

The first chapter outlines the introduction of the apartheid system in South Africa in 1948 and relates its contradictions to those depicted in some of Gordimer’s early fiction. Chapter two focuses on the author’s portrayal of the failure of liberal South Africans to change the system in the first two decades of its existence. This discussion is also based on Gordimer’s early works. In Chapter three, the author examines the themes of futility and despair as presented in Burger’s Daughter (1979). These themes are shown to reflect the political mood in South Africa during the sixties and seventies when apartheid appeared invincible after all forms of internal opposition had been silenced following the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. The option of armed struggle forced upon anti-apartheid groups from 1960 onwards is the subject of chapter four, and in chapter five, the resurgence of internal resistance to apartheid and the gradual decline of the system in the 1980s are discussed. Finally, chapter six focuses on "A Sport of Nature" (1987) and analyzes Gordimer’s comprehensive and unified depiction of the anti-apartheid struggle led by the ANC between the fifties and nineties.

In this book, Uledi-Kamanga engages in close textual analysis of Gordimer’s novels and short stories with specific focus on her use of irony as a central mode of literary exposition. He argues that through the use of this mode Gordimer was able to expose the various contradictions created by the apartheid system in South Africa and to predict its eventual collapse. By combining literary criticism with social history, Uledi-Kamanga has written a book that is relevant to both historians and literary scholars. ... Read more

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Bien avant qu'elle n'obtienne le Prix Nobel de littérature en 1991, Nadine Gordimer était connue comme militante blanche d'Afrique du Sud contre l'apartheid. Ce combat n'a jamais cessé d'être pour elle une priorité absolue. Mais elle est consciente du paradoxe qui consiste, pour une Blanche, à se battre aux côtés des Noirs. D'où l'autodérision qui donne à ses romans un ton inattendu, exempt de tout pathos et de toute emphase. Elle croit en la littérature, pour sa cause et même au-delà de toute cause et de tout engagement. Dans son univers romanesque le tragique et l'ironie coexistent, comme coexistent les hommes et les femmes, les Noirs et les Blancs. ... Read more

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Talks about how the following three authors address issues of identity and politics in their writings: the Canadian Michael Ondaatje, the Australian David Malouf, and the South African Nadine Gordimer. This book examines the alliance between postmodernism and postcolonial theory. ... Read more

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With her characteristic brilliance, Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer follows the inner lives of characters confronted by unforeseen circumstances. An earthquake offers tragedy and opportunity in the title story, exposing both an ocean bed strewn with treasure and the avarice of the town’s survivors. "Mission Statement" is the story of a bureaucrat’s idealism, the ghosts of colonial history, and a love affair with a government minister that ends astoundingly. And in "Karma," Gordimer’s inventiveness knows no bounds: in five returns to earthly life, a disembodied narrator, taking on different ages and genders, testifies to unfinished business and questions the nature of existence. Revelatory and powerful, these are stories that challenge our deepest convictions even as they dazzle us with their artful lyricism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Unfinished business
An air of the surreal weaves through some of the stories in this intriguing collection of short fiction. As an astute and engaged observer of social realities at home and globally, South African Nadine Gordimer brilliantly captures ordinary people's lives as they attempt to make sense of it, more or less successfully. And then, there is usually an unexpected twist towards the end of each story - some giving a future perspective in a different voice, inviting the reader to ponder varied possibilities.

Nadine Gordimer, multiple award winner, including of the Nobel Prize in 1991, is well known and admired for her short fiction. Here, she brings together a novella, a number of portraits of normal people with very brief fragments ormusings based around a specific news event, such as a tsunami in the title story, "Loot"."The Generation Gap" is a light hearted, ironic look at the squabbles of grown-up children about their widowed father who falls in love with a violinist of their own age.Something surreal happens with a group of professors in "Look Alike", another tongue in cheek story, yet with an allegoric message.The novella "The Mission Statement" is the most traditional of the stories in the collection.The central figure is a middle-aged English foreign aid worker experiencing her first African assignment. Her story is a surprising departure from the rest of the collection, both in tone and substance: very down to earth and, despite the intended surprise ending, completely realistic.

"Karma", the final segment is in itself a collection of vignettes, held together by a linking voice - that of a forever returning spirit-child. Anybody who has read the hauntingly beautiful The Famished Road by Booker Prize winner, Ben Okri, will remember the importance of the spirit-child in African cultures.Gordimer introduces such a spirit, develops it into one that is capable of memory and learning, who returns again and again, initially as an afterthought sprinkled into some of the short pieces. Yet in "Karma", it takes an important reflective role, linking the individual vignettes together. She expands the concept of "karma", building around it some of the most evocative pieces in the whole collection: love, race, relationships, society's explicit or implicit restrictions. As the title suggests, Hindu beliefs are also reflected upon by the returning spirit. The question remains at the end whether the need to return to the world to overcome the faults or weaknesses of the previous life does not in itself lead to "an unfinished business".

Gordimer's language is spare and efficient, her people descriptions vivid and precise. The detached tone and approach she demonstrates to her subjects does, however, not deny them emotional depth. Oblique references to brutality and conflict during the Apartheid period in South Africa are interwoven with the lives of her characters, in some cases contrasted with the post-Apartheid potential for a new beginning or ending.Nevertheless the stories reach beyond their locale in addressing common human aspirations and preoccupations. All of them leave room for the reader to ponder and expand on ideas and questions raised. [Friederike Knabe]

In a class by herself
Gordimer's use of language is beyond what the ordinary story teller employs. Her words are nuanced, metaphorical, and indirect in ways that let you mentally fill in the gaps and is very satisfying to one as the reader. I don't know of anyone who writes quite like her. Her stories are not plot driven and seem to evoke something profound about the characters' humanity that is difficult to describe. There are ordinary situations in some of her stories that are so vividly expressed, that they never leave your mind. Her writing is in a class of its own.

Well written but a bit dry
The characters of the short stories in Loot seem to be held an arm's length from their readers; even in the lofty "Karma", a story told from the viewpoint of a soul, the meat of life is there but the juice is missing. I didn't feel any moments of clarity or great inspiration, no need to copy down any passages for future reference. Luckily, this book is a quick read, so not much investment needed time-wise.
If you enjoy politics and are an unsentimental, analytical thinker, you'll like this. If you're an artist, emotional, or creative in any way, I'd move on. ... Read more

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A startling new work from a Nobel prize-winning author: ten short stories, each a revelation of our interior lives, each entering unforeseen contexts of our contemporary world. In the title story an earthquake exposes both an ocean bed strewn with treasure among the dead, and the avarice of the town's survivors. In 'The Diamond Mine' a woman remembers her first, passionately erotic experience, hidden, in the company of her parents, with a soldier who may not be alive to remember her. The anopheles mosquito brings death to the saunas and other playgrounds of the developed with in 'The Emissary'. In 'Karma', Gordimer's inventiveness knows no bounds: in five returns to the earthly life, taking on different ages and genders, a disembodied narrator testifies to unfinished business-critically, wittily-and questions the nature of existence. ... Read more

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15 essays by leading writers, feminists. covers commonwealth literature, attention to themes and ethnicity, views of women, by authors such as Atwood, Gordimer, Hulme, Grenville and new writers such as Manju Kapoor, Monica Ali and Chandini Lokuge ... Read more

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South African writer Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Her seventh novel, Burger's Daughter, focuses upon the daughter of a white, communist Afrikaner hero. Based partly on fact, successively banned and unbanned by the South African authorities, the novel has also become something of a test case for feminist critics of Gordimer's writing. This casebook includes an interview with and an essay by Nadine Gordimer on the novel, classic and recent critical essays, an introduction discussing biographical and historical contexts and the literary reception, and a bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

concise, lucid story telling
Gordimer tells simple, strong stories that are timed perfectly for a conclusion that leaves the reader sadened or concerned. SHe beautifully and subtlely shines a light into life in S. Africa by using white maincharacters, but showing black fears and consequences. Each story describesa different part of life in the country: urban, rural, in a cheiftanship,through the eyes of a black man, through the eyes of a white woman... ... Read more