(The following article
is made available in arrangement with the Arts & Culture Trust (ACT) and
the Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation (DALRO). See ACT’s
website http://www.act.org.za/)
(Nadine Gordimer)
Article by Rahiem Whisgary of the Arts and Culture Trust.
The opening line to Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun most accurately describes our sentiment to her
passing: Something terrible has happened. Recognised by Seamus Heaney as one of
the ‘guerrillas of the imagination’, Gordimer has, through the course of her
long and illustrious career, become one of South Africa’s most lauded and
prominent literary personalities. Among her many achievements, she has won the
1974 Booker Prize, the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the 1991 Nobel Prize
in Literature, as well as the inaugural ACT Lifetime Achievement Award for
Literature in 2012.
But her writing is not only known for its literary merit.
Like most of the great artists, her work resonates politically. Her novels, A World of Strangers and Burger’s Daughter, were banned by the
apartheid authorities. She became one of the literary world’s most powerful
voices against apartheid, famously editing Mandela’s ‘I Am Prepared To Die’
speech.
The power of her words sound beyond the precision of her
last, perfectly placed full stop. In conversation with Classicfeel’s Lore
Watterson, human rights lawyer George Bizos speaks of Gordimer’s first,
semi-autobiographical novel, The Lying
Days: “It really painted a picture of what our young lives were about. It
captured the spirit of our generation.”
Writer and activist Morakabe Raks Seakhoa, who first met
Gordimer at a 1987 conference to form the Congress of South African Writers
(COSAW), relates his impression of Gordimer: “One thing that always impressed
me about Nadine is her keenness to impart skills to writers, particularly
younger writers. With her and other comrades we ran creative writing skills
development programmes… When she won the Nobel Prize, she took part of the
money and donated it to COSAW Publishing so that the journal could continue.”
The Nobel Prize jury famously noted that Gordimer “through
her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very
great benefit to humanity.”
In Gordimer’s first short story published by Granta in 1982,
City of the Dead, City of the Living,
the political themes that links all of her work, is expressed bluntly by
Moreke, the story’s protagonist: “You don’t read the papers…the blowing up of
that police station…you know, last month? They didn’t catch them all… It isn’t
safe for Mtembu to keep him any longer. He must keep moving.”
In spite of the hostile South African environment, Gordimer
did not limit such candid expressions to her literary works. Bizos recounts how
her characteristic frankness has come close to putting her in danger: “We
called Nadine as a witness in the Delmas Trial. She gave evidence much to the
irritation of the trial judge – he didn’t like her one bit but that didn’t
prevent her. We spoke during the trial of discrimination against black people
in general and particularly Bantu education, the value of books and the
detention of writers. The prosecutor asked her, ‘What is your attitude towards
the African National Congress?’ She answered, ‘I support it.’ He then asked,
‘What about Umkhonto we Sizwe?’ She said, ‘Same thing, Wynand, I support them
too.’”
It is in this poignant expression that Bizos, in reference
to Gordimer, encapsulates the power that art is able to exert on politics:
“Nadine’s writings – her short stories and books – were a mirror that portrayed
a different image to what the apartheid regime wanted the world to believe.
That was an important part, where the writers, journalists and filmmakers all
contributed in their own way to the rejection of the propaganda of the regime.”
Watterson elaborates that, “in her fearless pursuit of both
her craft and her ideals, Gordimer has secured her place as one of South
Africa’s greats and as a truly fitting first recipient of the ACT Lifetime
Achievement Awards for Literature.” - Rahiem Whisgary
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