Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer
Gordimer at the Göteborg Book Fair, 2010
Born	(1923-11-20)20 November 1923 Springs, Transvaal, Union of South Africa
Died	13 July 2014(2014-07-13) (aged 90) Johannesburg, South Africa
Occupation	Writer
Language	English
Nationality	South African
Period	Apartheid-era South Africa
Genre	Novels, dramatic plays
Notable works	The Conservationist Burger's Daughter July's People
Notable awards	Booker Prize 1974 Nobel Prize in Literature 1991
Spouse	Gerald Gavron (1949–?; divorced; 1 child) Reinhold Cassirer (1954–2001, his death); 1 child

Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 – 13 July 2014) was a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".

Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned, and gave Nelson Mandela advice on his famous 1964 defence speech at the trial which led to his conviction for life. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.

Gordimer was born near Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg. Her father, Isidore Gordimer, was a Jewish immigrant watchmaker from Žagarė (then Russian Empire, now Lithuania), and her mother, Hannah "Nan" (Myers) Gordimer, was from London. Her mother was from an assimilated family of Jewish origins; Gordimer was raised in a secular household.

Gordimer's early interest in racial and economic inequality in South Africa was shaped in part by her parents. Her father's experience as a refugee in tsarist Russia helped form Gordimer's political identity, but he was neither an activist nor particularly sympathetic toward the experiences of black people under apartheid. Conversely, Gordimer saw activism by her mother, whose concern about the poverty and discrimination faced by black people in South Africa ostensibly led her to found a crèche for black children. Gordimer also witnessed government repression first-hand as a teenager; the police raided her family home, confiscating letters and diaries from a servant's room.