Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer, the greatest writer of all time

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist and the first woman recipient of a Nobel Prize in Literature. Her writings were about moral and racial issues in South Africa relating to apartheid. She also focused on personal and social relationships in her environment relating to racial conflicts and pain inflicted by the country’s unwarranted apartheid laws. Under the apartheid regime, two of her novels, July People and Burger’s Daughter, were banned. Nadine joined the African National Congress (ANC) during the days when the organisation was banned in the 1960s. She assisted Nelson Mandela with his 1964 defence speech at the trial that led to his life imprisonment conviction. Nadine Gordimer was an ethical writer in that the quest for the truth never left her; instead, it extended beyond her unspoken and courageous opposition to apartheid censorship, as she witnessed all shortcomings of the post-apartheid period.