Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimerwas a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity"...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 November 1923
blessed animal self
Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.
essentials faculty androgynous
when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.
beautiful writing light
Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light - and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau - into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.
civilization people wells
Well, you know, in the fundamentalist milieu of the Afrikaners, there was a sense that they were a chosen people, that they were bringing civilization to the blacks.
miracle suffering saint
It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.
writing eden creative
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.
writing fiction truthful
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
sacrifice moral authority
There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.
power sides innocence
Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb.
human-nature worst humans
Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature
flames air needs
I'm a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can't see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.
brain mind freedom-of-speech
The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.
writing solitude madness
The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.
book writing different
Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.