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NADINE GORDIMER (1923-2014), essays, novels - Coggle Diagram
NADINE GORDIMER (1923-2014)
LIFE
born in Springs, a small mining town near Johannesburg, from a Russian father and an English mother
educated in a convent school and at Witwatersrand University
she always lived in South Africa, strongly opposing to apartheid
for her opposition, some of her works were banned
1991 she won
the Nobel Prize for Literature
she died in Johannesburg in 2014
WORKS
1949
Face to face
collections of short stories
1953
The soft voice of the serpent
1953
The Lying days
first novel
unsentimental technique
tension between personal isolation and political commitment
refusal of exile
1973
On the mines
1986
Lifetimes: under apartheid
1988
The essential gestures: Writing, Politics and places
2005
Get a life
1971
A guest of honour
1974
The conservationist
1979
Burger's Daughter
The Booker Prize
1981
July's people
1990
My son's story
2001
The pickup
SOUTH AFRICA
she analyses the relationships among:
the Afrikaners (South African whites of European descent)
the Coloureds (mixed.-race people)
the whites
the blacks
she expresses the difficulties of a novelist in a society where 80% of the population is cut off from normal cultural influences by the colour bar
political and social transformation of South Africa
The pickup
1st part: New South Africa, a liberal post-apartheid South Africa. Race and class problems and the arbitrariness of bureaucracy analysed at a global level
2nd part: an unnamed Arab country. The interratial love story between Julie and Abdu explores the theme of the Self and the Other, from the racial opposition 'black and white' to the cultural one 'East and West'
PLOT
Julie Summers
, grown up in Johannesburg, rejects her upper-class roots and moves to the formerly black part of the town. Her life revolves around EL-AY Café.
When her car breaks down, she meets
Abdu
, a muslim immigrant who is in the country illegally. They become lovers and when authorities order him to leave the country, Julie marries Abdu and follows him to his native land, where she learns his real name, Ibrahim ibn Musa.
Julie becomes
the outsider
because she doesn't speak the language and must struggle with the constraints of a woman within a Muslim society. She finds
meaning and a sense of belonging
she never had in her native country, and learns how to accept and be accepted.
The novel ends with Ibrahim leaving the country for America while Julie stays behind.
THE OTHER
Each character acquires shape and character through his/her confrontation with 'significant others'
self-definition through difference
social
racial
questioning of traditional gender roles
Julie
picks up
Abdu
The moment before the gun went off
(short story)
essays
novels