Lit Openers
Episode 6: July's People
by Nadine Gordimer
Interactive Biography Chart
ESSENTIAL BIOGRAPHIC INFO |
||
| Author Name: | Nadine Gordimer | |
| Pseudonym: | /// | |
| Nickname: | Called "the conscience of South Africa" | |
| Date of Birth: | 20 November 1923 | |
| Place of Birth: | Springs, Transvaal (now Gauteng), South Africa | |
| Date of Death: | 13 July 2014 | |
| Time Period: | 20th-21st Century | |
| Type of Education: | Convent school and home tutoring; one year at university | |
| School/University: | Catholic convent school in Springs; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1945, one year without completing degree) | |
| Places where the author lived: | Springs (childhood); Johannesburg (from 1948 until death); same home in Parktown, Johannesburg for over five decades | |
| Peculiar events: | Her mother kept her home from school owing to an unfounded fear of a weak heart; began writing at age 9; first story published at 15 in the Johannesburg magazine Forum (1937). Police raided the family home during her childhood. Married art dealer Reinhold Cassirer in 1954 (died 2001). Active in the anti-apartheid movement; joined the banned ANC; helped edit Nelson Mandela's famous "I Am Prepared to Die" speech (1964). Received the Nobel Prize in Literature (1991). Robbed in her home in 2006 but refused to move to a gated complex. Major Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1991); Booker Prize for The Conservationist (1974); Central News Agency Literary Award for The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, and July's People; French Legion of Honour (2007); 10 honorary doctorates in literature from universities worldwide Political Activism: Founding member of the Congress of South African Writers; Vice President of PEN International; member of the African National Congress; testified in the Delmas Treason Trial (1988); worked on Nelson Mandela's biographical sketches during the Rivonia Trial (1963); active in HIV/AIDS prevention movement in the 1990s-2000s | |
LITERARY PRODUCTION |
||
Main works |
||
| Complete title: | "July's People" | |
| Genre: | Novel (1981) | |
| Synthesis: | This novel takes place in an imagined civil war in South Africa where the government falls. A white family must escape to the village of their Black servant, which flips their usual roles of power. The novel looks at how they depend on each other, question who they are, and face issues of race. The book won the Central News Agency Literary Award. | |
Other works |
||
| Title: | "The Conservationist" | |
| Genre: | Novel | |
| Brief Synthesis: | Published in 1974, Nadine Gordimer's novel The Conservationist brought her worldwide fame and won the Booker Prize. Set in apartheid-era South Africa, it looks at big ideas like who owns land, what makes identity, and the tough moral choices of white privilege in a divided country. The story follows Mehring, a rich white businessman who buys a farm. He feels detached from the land and the black workers on it. In the end, it questions if white people truly belong as landowners there. | |
| Title: | "Burger's Daughter" | |
| Genre: | Novel (1979) | |
| Brief Synthesis: | This novel explores the daughter of a white anti-apartheid activist and her struggle with her father's legacy. Banned by the apartheid regime for depicting white characters as oppressors and black characters sympathetically. Won the Central News Agency Literary Award. | |
| Title: | "Face to Face / The Lying Days / A Soldier's Embrace / Loot and Other Stories" | |
| Genre: | Short story collections | |
| Brief Synthesis: | Gordimer wrote 14 novels and 11 short story collections throughout her career. Face to Face (1949) was her first collection. The Lying Days (1953) was her first novel, depicting political awakening in Springs. Her stories consistently explored the devastating effects of apartheid, exile, alienation, and the tension between personal isolation and social justice commitment. | |