Out of Africa

Life Times

Born in 1923, Gordimer grew up in a small mining town outside of Johannesburg with a Latvian father, an English mother, and a growing sense of unease that something was very, very wrong with society, an unease which she has been exploring ever since.

Chronicling her country’s turbulent 20th century with courageous honesty, Gordimer is rivalled only by JM Coetzee on the South African literary scene, while, on the world stage, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1991. The Nobel Committee cited her work as being “of very great benefit to humanity”, recognition of both her achievements as a writer and her outspoken political commitment.