Congratulations to Nadine Gordimer on a life well lived.
What a hand to be dealt in life--being born a white person in South Africa, raised up in racism, speaking truth through her pen, and then being criticized late in life for possible vestiges of racism.
What a gift to the world. The LA Times obituary notes that she quoted Franz Kafka in seeing literature as "an ax to break up the frozen sea within us."
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-nadine-gordimer-20140715-story.html#page=1
Her short novel July's People is a great way to meet her, if you haven't read her work.
http://www.enotes.com/topics/julys-people-nadine-gordimer
July is a black employee to a privileged white family, but when they have to flee social upheaval, the tables are turned and he is their key to survival.
I started but didn't complete any of her novels. (The fault was probably mine, not hers.)
In 1991 I appreciated having another woman win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I know the historical contours of your life because my mother and mother-in-law were born in 1919 and 1922, so close to your birth. You grew up between world wars, and unlike them, you also grew up in a Jewish family.
Thank you, Nadine, for carving writing time from the ups and downs of life--two marriages, two kids--and recording the effects of racism and apartheid.
What a hand to be dealt in life--being born a white person in South Africa, raised up in racism, speaking truth through her pen, and then being criticized late in life for possible vestiges of racism.
What a gift to the world. The LA Times obituary notes that she quoted Franz Kafka in seeing literature as "an ax to break up the frozen sea within us."
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-nadine-gordimer-20140715-story.html#page=1
Her short novel July's People is a great way to meet her, if you haven't read her work.
http://www.enotes.com/topics/julys-people-nadine-gordimer
July is a black employee to a privileged white family, but when they have to flee social upheaval, the tables are turned and he is their key to survival.
I started but didn't complete any of her novels. (The fault was probably mine, not hers.)
In 1991 I appreciated having another woman win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I know the historical contours of your life because my mother and mother-in-law were born in 1919 and 1922, so close to your birth. You grew up between world wars, and unlike them, you also grew up in a Jewish family.
Thank you, Nadine, for carving writing time from the ups and downs of life--two marriages, two kids--and recording the effects of racism and apartheid.
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