New Releases by Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer began her writing life at a relatively young age. In 1991, that life received the ultimate recognition when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In this volume, Gordimer, who has been described by her peers as a formidable visitor from the future, the leviathan of South African letters and almost always as a gifted writer with extraordinary powers of observation, is paid homage by fellow writers from South Africa and other parts of the world. The book comprises readings, tributes, fiction, poetry, interviews and photographs which engage directly and indirectly with Gordimer''s work and her still unfolding legacy.

Qu''elle évoque son propre travail ou qu''elle interprète celui des autres, ou qu''elle entrouvre une fenêtre sur le monde "qu''ils tentent de reconstruire en Afrique du Sud", Nadine Gordimer a beaucoup a nous dire sur l''art de la fiction et sur l''art de la vie. L''auteur explore les tensions auxquelles est soumis l''écrivain entre ses expériences et ses créations narratives. Elle pose la question : d''où viennent les personnages ? Dans quelle mesure ont-ils surgi du réel ? Par quel processus mystérieux l''écrivain insuffle-t-il la "vraie vie" dans la fiction ? Analysant les écrits de certains révolutionnaires d''Afrique du Sud, elle démontre à quel point leur lutte s''exprime de manière contrastée en des récits à la fois très factuels et d''un grand lyrisme poétique. L''auteur se penche également sur trois écrivains qui ont défié, chacun à leur manière, les normes d''allégeance aux moeurs et aux systèmes politiques de leur pays : l''Egyptien Naguib Mahfouz, le Nigérian Chinua Achebe et l''Israélien Amos Oz. Leur quête d''une définition de la patrie témoigne de manière éclatante de ce que l''esprit humain doit s''étendre au-delà des frontières de la nation. Enfin, dans une approche plus personnelle, Nadine Gordimer évoque sa propre expérience d''écrivain qui s''est inscrit au-delà des confins d''un colonialisme agonisant. Les six conférences contenues dans ce livre, que l''auteur a données à Harvard en 1994, sont suivies d''une essai sur la vie et l''oeuvre de Joseph Roth, et du discours de Nadine Gordimer lors de sa réception du prix Nobel, en 1991. Née en Afrique du Sud en 1923, Nadine Gordimer est l''auteur d''une vingtaine de romans et de recueils de nouvelles, parmi lesquels son dernier roman, Personne pour m''accompagner. Elle vit à Johannesbourg.

Nadine Gordimer sait saisir ces instants où des vies basculent, où des êtres révèlent sans masque et sans fard leur nature profonde.

Verhalen, spelend in Zuid-Afrika.

Hillela ist ein außergewöhnliches Mädchen, und sie wächst zu einer kraftvollen, innerlich freien Frau heran. Der Titel spielt zunächst einmal auf den Zufall der unterschiedlichen Hautfarben an, aber es ist sicher ebenso richtig, den Titel auf die Hauptgestalt zu beziehen. Hillela ist wie durch ein Spiel der Natur ganz frei vom Rassismus ihrer Umgebung; schon als Mädchen muß sie ein Internat in Rhodesien verlassen, weil sie sich mit einem farbigen Jungen anfreundet. Später heiratet sie einen schwarzen Widerstandskämpfer aus Südafrika. Der Roman ist der Versuch, eine Frauengestalt zu schildern, die alle Schranken des kolonialen Afrika - Schranken auf seiten der Weißen ebenso wie auf seiten der Schwarzen - hinter sich läßt. Nadine Gordimer hat in Hillela nicht nur eine überzeugende Frau von großer Wärme, Sinnlichkeit und Freiheit geschaffen, sondern auch einen Menschen, der in dieser afrikanischen Welt der Gegensätze seinen Platz findet.

A schoolboy playing truant bumps into his revered father coming out of a cinema with a woman.

Conversations with Nadine Gordimer edited by Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour Nadine Gordimer is one of the contemporary world''s most admired writers of novels and short stories. This volume collects three decades of her interviews. In them she presents her attitudes toward her art and its interconnection with the oppressive, volatile politics in her native land. She has traveled extensively to other countries only to discover that no matter how white her skin she is indeed African and the only country she can call home is South Africa. If you write honestly about life in South Africa, apartheid damns itself, she says. She is ruthlessly honest, and her fiction has played the vital role of communicating in detail to the rest of the world the effects of apartheid upon the daily lives of the South African people. To maintain her integrity, she writes as though she were dead, without any thought of how anyone will react to what she has written. She remains heroically undaunted both by the banning of three of her novels by the white government and by the protests of radical blacks who assert that whites cannot write convincingly about blacks.She is concerned neither with the image of blacks nor with the image of whites, only with revealing the complexity, the full truth. This truth condemns the racism upon which apartheid is built. In her nine novels and eight volumes of short stories, Gordimer digs deeper and deeper until she has thematic layers. These include betrayal-political, sexual, every form and power, the way human beings use power in their relationships. Her accounts in these interviews of how she works and of which writers she admires will fascinate readers, scholars, teachers, and students alike. Co-editors Nancy Topping Bazin retired from the faculty of the English and women''s studies departments at Old Dominion University, and Marilyn Dallman Seymour retired from the staff of the Government Publications Department of the Old Dominion University Library.

Mehring, homme d''affaires prospère, n''a d''évidence jamais pensé à remettre en question les privilèges que lui assure sa position d''homme blanc dans un pays de Noirs. Ni sa maîtresse, féministe et gauchiste, ni son fils, étudiant et pacifiste, ne peuvent le comprendre, encore moins ébranler ses convictions. Ce qu''il éprouve pour la ferme qu''il vient d''acheter, ce sentiment inaliénable de propriété, personne ne peut ni le lui contester ni le lui retirer : ni Jacobus, le métayer noir, ni les hommes qui cultivent ses cent soixante hectares au Transvaal, ni les fermiers Boers pour qui Mehring n''est qu''un amateur, ni les Indiens qui tiennent le magasin général, encore moins les cent cinquante mille Noirs qui vivent dans le township entre la ferme et la ville. Le Conservateur est le portrait étonnant d''un homme qui personnifie tous les paradoxes du statu quo : calculateur et tolérant, il aime le pouvoir mais comprend qu''on s''y oppose ; défenseur des valeurs d''argent et de rentabilité, il ne peut résister au charme puissant d''un pays insaisissable, à cette terre d''Afrique à la beauté singulière et envoûtante qui par-delà le destin des individus attire et fascine.

The historical and visionary, sweeping and personal story of an extraordinary South African woman''s life from her childhood in Johannesburg to her becoming the wife of the black president of one of Africa''s most progressive nations. Nadine Gordimer''s last work ws Something Out There.

This work is another contribution to the growing pictorial record of apartheid in South Africa, and like some earlier series of black-and-white photographs it is haunted with pathos and irony. Like the pictures from Peter Magubane''s Magubane''s South Africa (LJ 5/15/78), Goldblatt''s images span 35 years and qualify as works of art in their own right.

A collection of nine stories and one novella explore the secret and collusive codes by which people live together.

"This is a novel of enormous power'' New Statesman ''Gordimer is a great writer ... It is Turgenev that she most brings to mind'' -- New York Review of Books The Booker Prize winning political novel by the Nobel Prize winning author Nadine Gordimer Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm.

Seven stories of South Africa deal with a missing body, a mysterious Rhodesian visitor, a pass law protest, a white geologist and his Black secretary, and a pair of childhood sweethearts.

"A riveting history of South Africa and a penetrating portrait of a courageous woman." -- The New Yorker A must read fiction of South Africa from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature This is the moving story of the unforgettable Rosa Burger, a young woman from South Africa cast in the mold of a revolutionary tradition. Rosa tries to uphold her heritage handed on by martyred parents while still carving out a sense of self. Although it is wholly of today, Burger''s Daughter can be compared to those 19th century Russian classics that make a certain time and place come alive, and yet stand as universal celebrations of the human spirit. Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born and lives in South Africa.

A selection of 31 stories from the South African author''s work.