Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
NADINE GORDIMERExile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
NADINE GORDIMERIn various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.
NADINE GORDIMERIf people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there’d be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.
NADINE GORDIMERPeace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.
NADINE GORDIMERArt defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.
NADINE GORDIMERFrom Ernest Hemingway’s stories I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.
NADINE GORDIMERCan you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more-absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.
NADINE GORDIMERWell, 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.
NADINE GORDIMERA truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
NADINE GORDIMERThere’s no tiling moral about beauty.
NADINE GORDIMERIt’s absolutely fatal to your writing to think about how your work will be received. It’s a betrayal of whatever talent you have.
NADINE GORDIMERI decided that I wanted nothing to do with South African government television while any of my fellow writers were banned and couldn’t speak publicly.
NADINE GORDIMERIt’s easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
NADINE GORDIMERMy answer is: Recognize yourself in others
NADINE GORDIMERPerhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
NADINE GORDIMERWriters themselves don’t analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.
NADINE GORDIMER