South African Nobel-prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, one of the literary world’s most powerful voices against apartheid, has died at the age of 90. She was one of three African Nobel prize winners alongside Wole Soyinka who celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday and JM Coetzee.
She was the only African woman who has gone on to win the biggest prize in world literature for novels and short stories that grappled with the human tensions of the apartheid system and the problems of the post-apartheid state in 1991.
Gordimer was born in Gauteng, South Africa, in 1923 to immigrant European parents. She wrote many books, three of which were banned under the infamous apartheid regime’s censorship laws. Some of her most famous works include The Conservationist (1974) for which she won the Booker Prize in 1974, Burger’s Daughter (1979), July’s People (1981), and a host of others you can read at her Wiki page.
She is survived by her children Hugo and Oriane who were present when she passed on to the other side.
Rest In Peace, Nadine Gordimer. May you continue fighting injustice on the other side.
Leave a Reply