Voting Station

Nadine Gordimer

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Author

The Resume

    (November 20, 1923-July 13, 2014)
    Born in Springs, South Africa
    Author and anti-apartheid activist
    Wrote the novels 'The Lying Days' (1963), 'A World of Strangers' (1958), 'Occasion for Living' (1963), 'The Late Bourgeois World' (1966), 'A Guest of Honour' (1970), 'The Conversationalist' (1974), 'Burger's Daughter' (1977), 'July's People' (1981), 'A Sport of Nature' (1987), 'My Son's Story' (1990), 'None to Accompany Me' (1994), 'The House Gun' (1998), 'The Pickup' (2001), 'Get a Life' (2005) and 'No Time Like the Present' (2012)
    Short story collections include 'Face to Face' (1949), 'The Soft Voice of the Serpent' (1952), 'Not for Publication' (1965), 'No Place Like: Selected Stories' (1975), 'Correspondence Course and Other Stories' (1984), 'Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972' (1992), 'Loot and Other Stories' (2003) and 'Life Times: Stories' (2011)
    Was a member of the African National Congress (ANC)
    Founding member of the Congress of South African Writers (1987)
    Won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1991)

Why she might be annoying:

    She said that growing up, 'I was awful -- brash, a show-off, a dreadful child.'
    She made up events (and the existence of two cousins) for an autobiographical essay in 'The New Yorker,' 'A South African Childhood.' (1954)
    She stopped using 'he said' and 'she said' in her novels and noted, 'Some people complain that this makes my novels more difficult to read. But I don't care.'
    She signed a statement supporting Fidel Castro and condemning 'harassment of Cuba' in the wake of a crackdown on dissidents by the Castro regime (May 1, 2003).
    She admitted about her disappointment with corruption under ANC governments, 'We were naive because we focused on removing the apartheid government and never thought deeply enough about what would follow.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    Fellow Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney called her 'a guerrilla of the imagination.'
    Three of her books were banned under the apartheid government's censorship laws.
    She hid several ANC leaders in her home to prevent their arrest, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Luthuli.
    She said the proudest day of her life was when she testified on behalf of 22 anti-apartheid activists at the Delmas Treason Trial (1986).
    She was attacked in her home and locked in a storage room by robbers (2006), but refused to move to a gated community.
    She criticized the post-apartheid governments of Thabo Mbeki for its AIDS denialism and Jacob Zuma for attempting to impose broad censorship laws.
    She said, 'I don't believe in my country, right or wrong. You have the right -- indeed, the duty -- to be critical.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 12 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 130 Votes: 54.62% Annoying