Nadine Gordimer

South African writer (1923-2014) · South Africa · Writers · Died at 90

Nadine Gordimer is read about 362 times a day, in 109 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 18 October 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 393 days, one point a day.

Something wrong?

Compare

She wrote apartheid's moral reckoning into fiction the regime tried to ban, then lived long enough to see both the system fall and a Nobel committee call her work "of very great benefit to humanity."

Writers Writer / Author Poetry Literature Fiction Theatre South Africa Africa

A life in dates

2014Died13 July 20141991Nobel Prize in LiteratureAward1988Anisfield-Wolf Book AwardsAward1985Nelly Sachs PrizeAward1984“Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.”In their words12 October 1984"The Essential Gesture" (12 October 1984)Read the whole statement

1983“In countries like Czechoslovakia, like South Africa, like Argentina, guilt by association is a fact and therefore the friendships you form can be a political act.”In their words1983 interview in Conversations with Nadine GordimerRead the whole statement

1982“I think that the decision to be sincere is an artistic one.”In their words1982 interview in Conversations with Nadine Gordimer edited by Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour (1990)Read the whole statement

1981Central News Agency Literary AwardAward1979“I like the idea of a literary patchwork, novel by novel, poem by poem, by different writers, mapping out an era, 'a continent' more and more thoroughly. No one writer can do it.”In their words1979 interview in Conversations with Nadine Gordimer edited by Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour (1990)Read the whole statement

Central News Agency Literary AwardAward1974Booker PrizeAwardCentral News Agency Literary AwardAward1971James Tait Black Memorial PrizeAward1966“I opened the telegram and said, "He's dead - " and as I looked up into Graham Mill's gaze I saw that he knew who, before I could say.”In their wordsThe Late Bourgeois World (1966) (first lines)Read the whole statement

1963“The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”In their wordsMay 1963"Leaving School - II", The London Magazine (May 1963)Read the whole statement

1961WH Smith Literary AwardAward1923Born20 November 1923

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Nadine Gordimer 01

ASC Leiden - Library - Shelf - 2017

Carlos Menem with Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer 01 (cropped)

Nadine Gordimer 01 (cropped2)

Nadine Gordimer 01 (cropped3)

Nadine Gordimer 2010

Nadine Gordimer und David Grossman

In their own words 10

Nadine Gordimer

10 statements, newest first

I think that as long as those of us in South Africa who are articulate are asked to go abroad, and we know we are going to be interviewed, we cannot refuse.
1984, 1984 interview in Conversations with Nadine Gordimer edited by Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour (1990), Own words
Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.
Oct 12, 1984, "The Essential Gesture" (12 October 1984), Own words
Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.
1983, Interview with Jannika Hurwitt, published in Paris Review, 88 (Summer 1983) 82-127; reprinted in Writers at Work: The Paris Review, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Nobel Prize in Literature1991

Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards1988

Nelly Sachs Prize1985

Central News Agency Literary Award1981

Central News Agency Literary Award1979

Central News Agency Literary Award1974

Booker Prize1974

James Tait Black Memorial Prize1971

WH Smith Literary Award1961

Officer of the Legion of Honour

Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres

Rome Prize

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Family

Parents

Nadine Gordimer

Partners

Is this everyone?

Only relatives with a profile here are drawn, so a family can be larger than this. A line here can also be wrong.

Correct this family

About this person

Nadine Gordimer was born in South Africa on 20 November 1923 and spent six decades turning the country's racial fractures into literature that refused easy answers. Her novels - The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People - won the Booker Prize and repeated Central News Agency Literary Awards, but the apartheid government banned some of them for the questions they raised. She joined the African National Congress when membership itself was illegal and helped Nelson Mandela draft the 1964 defence speech that preceded his life sentence. In 1991 the Nobel Prize in Literature arrived, recognising the epic scope of her witness. She turned to HIV/AIDS activism in her later years and died on 13 July 2014, one of the most honoured writers of her generation.

Country

South Africa

In common with Nadine

Zakes MokaeAlso in Dilemma (1962)

Joe StewardsonAlso in City Lovers (1982)

Henning CarlsenAlso in Dilemma (1962)

Denise NewmanAlso in City Lovers (1982)Barney SimonAlso in City Lovers (1982)

Bent ChristensenAlso in Dilemma (1962)

Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.