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Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014)

Author of July's People

113+ Works 11,245 Members 190 Reviews 24 Favorited

About the Author

Nadine Gordimer was born in Gauteng, South Africa on November 20, 1923. She attended the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa for one year. She is a novelist and short-story writer whose major theme is exile and alienation. Her first short story collection, The Soft Voice of the show more Serpent, was published in 1952 and her first novel, The Lying Days, was published in 1953. Her other short story collections include Jump, Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972, and Loot. Her other novels include A World of Strangers, A Guest of Honour, Burger's Daughter, July's People, A Sport of Nature, My Son's Story, None to Accompany Me, The Pickup, and Get a Life. She has received numerous awards including the Booker Prize for The Conservationist in 1974, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, and the French Legion of Honour in 2007. She died on July 13, 2014 at the age of 90. (Bowker Author Biography) Nadine Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. (Publisher Provided) show less

Works by Nadine Gordimer

July's People (1981) 1,791 copies
Burger's Daughter (1979) 1,065 copies
The Conservationist (1974) 791 copies
The Pickup (2001) 789 copies
My Son's Story (1990) 754 copies
The House Gun (1997) 599 copies
None to Accompany Me (1994) 515 copies
A Sport of Nature (1987) 491 copies
Jump and Other Stories (1991) 461 copies
Telling Tales (2004) — Editor — 344 copies
Get a Life (2005) 299 copies
A Guest of Honour (1970) 269 copies
Gordimer: Selected Stories (1975) 245 copies
A World of Strangers (1958) 229 copies
No Time Like the Present (2012) 222 copies
Something Out There (1984) 211 copies
The Late Bourgeois World (1966) 211 copies
The Lying Days (1953) 181 copies
Loot and Other Stories (2003) 159 copies
Occasion for Loving (1963) 153 copies
Six Feet of the Country (1982) 133 copies
A Soldier's Embrace: Stories (1980) 125 copies
Writing and Being (1995) 66 copies
Livingstone's Companions (1972) 56 copies
Crimes of Conscience (1991) 51 copies
Lifetimes Under Apartheid (1986) 33 copies
Modern Short Stories 2: 1940-1980 (1982) — Contributor — 12 copies
Jump [short story] (1992) 12 copies
The Black Interpreters (1973) 10 copies
Der Inbegriff des Erfolgs (1996) 9 copies
Engate, O (2004) 8 copies
16 noveller (1984) 5 copies
Town and Country Lovers (1988) 4 copies
Oreaḥ kavod (1981) 4 copies
The Train from Rhodesia (1984) 3 copies
Pillage (2004) 3 copies
Loot (2004) 3 copies
Finali alternativi (2013) 2 copies
Le magicien africain (2003) 2 copies
Escribir y ser (1997) 1 copy
JUMP 1 copy
Face to Face 1 copy
Comrades 1 copy
La agatat (2008) 1 copy
The Pet 1 copy
Soft Voice (1962) 1 copy
City Lovers 1 copy
Face to Face (1949) 1 copy
Et eget liv (2006) 1 copy
Hans hvide mennesker (1982) 1 copy
[No title] 1 copy

Associated Works

Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957) — Introduction, some editions — 593 copies
The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection (1986) — Contributor — 461 copies
A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women (2000) — Contributor — 264 copies
Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-Short Stories (1989) — Contributor — 213 copies
Granta 92: The View from Africa (2006) — Contributor — 174 copies
Granta 28: Birthday: The Anniversary Issue (1989) — Contributor — 150 copies
Murder & Other Acts of Literature (1997) — Contributor — 147 copies
African Short Stories (1985) — Contributor — 145 copies
Granta 35: An Unbearable Peace (1991) — Contributor — 139 copies
The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998) — Contributor — 130 copies
Granta 22: With Your Tongue Down My Throat (1987) — Contributor — 129 copies
Granta 44: The Last Place on Earth (1993) — Contributor — 125 copies
Mistresses of the Dark [Anthology] (1998) — Contributor — 121 copies
Somehow Tenderness Survives: Stories of Southern Africa (1988) — Contributor — 121 copies
The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification (1987) — Preface, some editions — 117 copies
Granta 40: The Womanizer (1992) — Contributor — 113 copies
The Penguin Book of International Women's Stories (1996) — Contributor — 113 copies
Granta 15: The Fall of Saigon (1985) — Contributor — 97 copies
The Treasury of English Short Stories (1985) — Contributor — 84 copies
Stories from The New Yorker, 1950 to 1960 (1958) — Contributor — 80 copies
Granta 17: While Waiting for a War (1985) — Contributor — 80 copies
The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories (1991) — Contributor — 75 copies
Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa (1983) — Contributor — 73 copies
Women and Fiction: Volume 2 (1978) — Contributor — 73 copies
Dark Arrows: Great Stories of Revenge (1985) — Contributor — 60 copies
Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories (1992) — Contributor — 55 copies
Olive Schreiner (1980) — Foreword, some editions — 53 copies
The Literary Lover: Great Stories of Passion and Romance (1993) — Contributor — 50 copies
The Penguin Book of Southern African Stories (1985) — Contributor — 49 copies
Point of Departure (1967) — Contributor — 46 copies
Turbott Wolfe (1926) — Introduction, some editions — 43 copies
Granta 6: A Literature for Politics (1990) — Contributor — 41 copies
Modern Jewish stories (1963) — Contributor — 36 copies
The Secret Self: A Century of Short Stories by Women (1995) — Contributor — 33 copies
Antaeus No. 75/76, Autumn 1994 - The Final Issue (1994) — Contributor — 32 copies
One World of Literature (1992) — Contributor — 24 copies
Trial and Error: An Oxford Anthology of Legal Stories (1998) — Contributor — 24 copies
African Literature: an anthology of criticism and theory (2007) — Contributor — 23 copies
An African Quilt: 24 Modern African Stories (2012) — Contributor — 17 copies
Masters of British Literature, Volume B (2007) — Contributor — 16 copies
Best Short Stories 1991 (1991) — Contributor — 15 copies
Nobel Writers on Writing (2000) — Contributor — 14 copies
Sometimes When It Rains: Writings by South African Women (1987) — Contributor — 12 copies
New World Writing: Fourth Mentor Selection (1953) — Contributor — 12 copies
The Playboy Book of Short Stories (1995) — Contributor — 11 copies
Ten: A Bloomsbury Tenth Anniversary Anthology (1996) — Contributor — 7 copies
Penguin Modern Stories 4 (1970) — Contributor — 7 copies
Enjoying Stories (1987) — Contributor — 2 copies
Harper's Magazine 1989 Oct. — Contributor — 1 copy
Harper's Magazine 1988 Aug — Contributor — 1 copy
The best of Playboy fiction, Volume 7 (1997) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

20th century (158) Africa (455) African (47) African literature (178) anthology (467) apartheid (243) Booker Prize (47) books (45) books about books (66) collection (49) essays (189) fiction (2,035) Granta (185) history (51) literary journal (49) literature (452) mystery (90) Nobel (62) Nobel Laureate (92) Nobel Prize (193) non-fiction (181) novel (330) own (58) poetry (79) politics (56) race (47) read (79) Roman (95) short stories (856) short story (52) South Africa (838) South African (125) South African fiction (81) South African literature (257) stories (84) textbook (57) to-read (505) unread (96) women (66) writing (65)

Common Knowledge

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October 2011: Nadine Gordimer in Monthly Author Reads (October 2011)

Reviews

Nadine Gordimer is a master storyteller. It may not appeal to those with a need to be entertained but what makes it masterful is the way complex characters are displayed with subtlety and powerful issues are handled without preaching. Once Upon A Time will change the way you look at the fairytale and racism/xenophobia's destructive effects. Each word used to describe the scenery is necessary part that holds this tapestry together. Some of the chilling parts of a story like Beethoven Was One Sixteenth Black come in a spare poetic lines that seem to be normal thoughts on the surface until one goes back to see the layers they open, "Caches of old papers are graves . . ." A great collection that has much to offer for the complex multi-faceted problems of race and stereotyping in the States as well as South Africa. Not only covers overt racism but the complicity of the so called upper class.… (more)
 
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DAGray08 | Jan 1, 2024 |
Great theme, bad storytelling.
 
Flagged
Twisk | 9 other reviews | Oct 2, 2023 |
The writing style was a bit hard to understand at first - there are no indications of who is talking, you have to rely on context and content - but once I got used to it the style really helped bring immediacy to the story. Not sure that I understood the ending, but that doesn't take away from the book in any way.
 
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blueskygreentrees | 39 other reviews | Jul 30, 2023 |
This was a challenging book for me to read because of the style and verbal exchanges. There was no indication as to whom was speaking. The shift of power after the Smales are taken by July to his village is evident and profound, especially in that this book was written before Apartheid was finished. I did find that the introspection by the white couple was boring and completely off the mark - they were proud of their liberalism but had difficulty in seeing how their responses to their situation perpetuated animosity between the races.… (more)
 
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Kimberlyhi | 39 other reviews | Apr 15, 2023 |

Lists

1970s (1)
1980s (1)

Awards

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Associated Authors

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Muriel Spark Contributor
Seán O'Faoláin Contributor
Fred Urquhart Contributor
Rhys Davies Contributor
Elspeth Davie Contributor
Morlay Callaghan Contributor
Geoffrey Bush Contributor
Jean Rhys Contributor
William Sansom Contributor
Doris Lessing Contributor
John McGahern Contributor
Frank Sargeson Contributor
J. G. Ballard Contributor
R. Prawer Jhabvala Contributor
Edmund Crispin Contributor
Elizabeth Taylor Contributor
Alan Sillitoe Contributor
L. P. Hartley Contributor
Roald Dahl Contributor
Angus Wilson Contributor
Patrick White Contributor
Samuel Beckett Contributor
Francis King Contributor
Elizabeth Bowen Contributor
R. K. Narayan Contributor
Graham Greene Contributor
William Trevor Contributor
Chinua Achebe Contributor
Salman Rushdie Contributor
Christa Wolf Contributor
Margaret Atwood Contributor
Michel Tournier Contributor
John Updike Contributor
Claudio Magris Contributor
Paul Theroux Contributor
Woody Allen Contributor
Es'kia Mphahlele Contributor
José Saramago Contributor
Hanif Kureishi Contributor
Amos Oz Contributor
Susan Sontag Contributor
Arthur Miller Contributor
Njabulo S. Ndebele Contributor
Kenzaburō Ōe Contributor
Ingo Schulze Contributor
Günter Grass Contributor
Dorinde van Oort Translator
Seppo Loponen Translator
Else Lundgren Translator
Margaret Carroux Translator
Heleen ten Holt Translator
Annika Preis Translator
Ettore Capriolo Translator
Eva Sjöstrand Translator
Stephen Clingman Editor, Introduction
Klaus Hoffer Übersetzer
David Colacci Narrator
Tilly Maters Translator
Jordi Fibla Translator

Statistics

Works
113
Also by
65
Members
11,245
Popularity
#2,097
Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
190
ISBNs
688
Languages
25
Favorited
24

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