The Moral Outrage of a Sceptic: Nadine Gordimer and South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 117 ◽  
pp. 141-146
Author(s):  
Michael Newman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Nadine Gordimer

The Reflection of Apartheidic Trauma / Traumatic Apartheid in None to Accompany Me by Nadine Gordimer

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 328
Author(s):  
Şahin KIZILTAŞ
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black People ◽  
Native People ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
White People ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Violence Victimization ◽  
White Settlers ◽  
Almost All

The world has gone through a trauma for centuries. Almost all nations have experienced all sorts of traumatic events and feelings in this period. Among those nations, the black seem to be the most unlucky and ill-fated suffered from traumatic disasters. However, among those black nations, the natives of South Africa have been the most piteous and wretched ones. Their misfortune began in 1652 with the arrival of white colonists in the country. Since then, the oppression and persecution of white European colonists and settlers on natives increasingly continued. Those native people were displaced from the lands inherited from their ancestors a few centuries ago. They were not allowed to have equal rights with white people and to share same environment in public premises. The natives have put up resistance against the racial and colonial practices of white settlers which excluded them from all living spaces; yet, they could not manage, even they came into power in 1994. Today their exclusion and violence victimization still go on and they are still subjected to inferior treatment by (post)colonial dominant white powers. As a white intellectual and writer who had European origins, Nadine Gordimer witnessed the repression and torturing of European settlers on native people in South Africa. In her novels, she has reflected the racial discrimination practiced by white people who have considered of themselves in a superior position compared to the black. This study aims to focus on how Gordimer has reflected the trauma which the black people of South Africa have experienced as a consequence of racist practices. This will contribute to clarify and get across the real and true-life traumatic narratives of native people in the colonized countries.

‘Wisselbare Woorde’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrol Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
Critical Problems ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Carrol Clarkson’s chapter wrestles with the contentious question of Coetzee’s relation to the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa of the 1970s and early 1980s, which took its philosophical bearings from Frantz Fanon and found expression in the writings of Steve Biko. Clarkson focuses on the ways in which Coetzee departed from the ideas about writing and resistance that were circulating in his contemporary South Africa, particularly as articulated by novelist Nadine Gordimer. Clarkson discusses two related literary-critical problems: an ethics and politics of representation, and an ethics and politics of address, showing how Coetzee explores a tension between freedom of expression and responsibility to the other. In the slippage from saying to addressing we are led to further thought about modes and sites of consciousness—and hence accountabilities—in the interlocutory contact zones of the post-colony. The chapter invites a sharper appreciation of what a postcolonial philosophy might be.

scholarly journals From apartheid to Post-Apartheid: The Representational Trajectory to a Multiracial Nation in Nadine Gordimer’s None to Accompany Me, Andre Brink’s The Rights of Desire and Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 707-724
Author(s):  
FORTI ETIENNE LANGMIA
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Black Population ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
South Africans ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Andre Brink ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Zakes Mda ◽  
African Writers

This article, which draws inspiration from the literary works of three South African writers, focuses on the two (amongst many) major historic periods in the life of the present-day nation described as post-apartheid South Africa. The two periods, evident in the works of Andre Brink, Zakes Mda and Nadine Gordimer under review, are the reign of apartheid and the transition to a democratic multiracial society built on the principles of equality and the respect of the rights and freedoms of South Africans.  From both historical and literary standpoints, the transition to multiracialism is the outcome of the struggle of the oppressed black population of South Africa against the oppressive monolithic racist regime which ruled the country on an official governance policy which it called ‘Apartheid’. In order to enforce this inhumane worldview, the said racist regime used means of brutality and savagery with the intention of transforming the country into a ‘white nation’ that would belong to a minority-turned majority known as the Afrikaners. The often callous and gruesome acts of inhumanity perpetrated by the different racist apartheid regimes (that ruled South Africa from 1948-1994) became a major concern to the world at large and South African anti-apartheid writers in particular.  Thus this category of the country’s writers tended to use literature as an instrument of protest against racial discrimination, which brought untold hardship to the black population. Andre Brink, Zakes Mda, and Nadine Gordimer are among the writers whose works vividly trace the South African experience from apartheid to post-apartheid eras. Brink, Mda and Gordimer in their respective works attempt to portray the endeavours and challenges of reconstructing the new nation from the debris of close to four decades of the brutal regime. The main issues discussed in this article are analyzed from New Historicist and Postcolonial perspectives due to the peculiar postcolonial nature of South Africa.

scholarly journals A study of identity in post-apartheid South African English literature: The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer

Literator ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.J. Cloete
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Northern Africa ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
Twenty First Century

In examining aspects of identity in “The Pickup” (2001), Nadine Gordimer’s latest novel, this article indicates new trends in postapartheid South African English literature as well. In the article it is indicated that identity has always been an important theme in Gordimer’s novels. Her earlier novels tend to focus on her characters’ struggle to attain political or racial rather than personal freedom, while her later novels increasingly tend to examine the construction of individual identities. “The Pickup” has continued this search for identity, but against a new and interesting perspective, a perspective that is in line with the political transformation of post-apartheid South Africa after 1994. Moreover, this theme is extremely relevant in the twenty-first century with its increased emphasis on place and globalisation. This article thus examines the theme of identity in “The Pickup”, first against a South African background and then against the backdrop of an unknown town somewhere in the desert – most probably in Northern Africa.

The South African censor: No change

1981 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Gordimer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
The South ◽  
Back Cover ◽  
State Security ◽  
University Of Cape Town

On 11 July 1979 Nadine Gordimer's novel Burger's Daughter was banned by the South African Directorate of Publications on the grounds – among others – that the book was a threat to state security. ( Excerpts from the censor's arguments were printed on the back cover of Index on Censorship 1/1980.) After an international outcry the Director of Publications on 1 August 1979 appealed against the decision of his own censorship committee to the Publications Appeal Board. A committee of literary experts was appointed, and a hearing on the appeal was set for 3 October. But the hearing did not take place; in early October 1979 the book was simply released for distribution. Some weeks later a similar pattern was shown in the treatment of André Brink's Afrikaans-language novel A Dry White Season. The book was banned, the censorship board – not the author – appealed against its own decision, and the book was un-banned. In the article which follows, Nadine Gordimer reflects on these events, and on the new censorship policy they herald. Her article was originally a paper presented to a University of Cape Town conference on censorship held in April 1980. It was first published in Critical Arts: A Journal for Media Studies, Vol 1, No 2, June 1980, ( available from the School of Dramatic Art, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg 2001, South Africa). The papers from the censorship conference will be published by David Philip, Capetown.

scholarly journals Political Activism and Family Matters in Nadine Gordimer‘s My Son’s Story (1990)

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Babacar Diakhaté
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
Political Activist

Before independence, South Africa experienced her most socio-political turbulences because of Apartheid. Peter Abrahams, John Maxwell Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer depict racial discrimination, political and sexual violence and social injustice in the context of Apartheid.  The aims of this article is to portray “political affairs”, “family matters” and private passions in Nadine Gordimer’s My Son’s Story. It also brings to light Sonny’s motivation to become a political activist and join the blacks in the resistance against racial discrimination.

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