Wednesday, 22 February 2012 PAGE 19

Opinion & Analysis

Writing to understand about life

THE BIG INTERVIEW NADINE GORDIMER
Im blessed to have earned a living doing what I knew I could do and really enjoyed
NadiNe Gordimer turns 89 later this year but shes as sharp as a tack. i still found myself fumbling my words and racing to keep up with her answers or spinning to find the next question to keep the interview going. Shes formidable, with a mountainous reputation, an intellect to boot and an activists stance that is respected far beyond the borders of this country, one she has fought so hard to liberate through the sharpness of her pen. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature 20 years ago in such recognition. She snapped at me more than once for inaccurately describing her most recent novel or questioning whether she still considers herself an activist, but she was always polite. Just like her writing; considered, deliberate and strong. That said, i think she took a liking to me. a fan of Gordimer since i was a child, i knew of her since I first knew writing. She, among others, exposed me to what South africa really was at that time. That was decades ago but her writing today still resonates with the truth as she knows it. She still writes with drive and conviction. Any doubts to the contrary are quickly dispelled in the interview. Sitting in her breakfast room with a bowl of browning bananas and ripe mangoes just a skip from the old transistor radio with a manual tuning knob, she explained the relevance of her latest novel, her 15th, No Time Like The Present. it isnt about race, she says. its about what those who were in the struggle didnt have the peace of mind to think about. its about the problems that came after freedom. We just didnt think about what it would be like afterwards. Today, the past still needs to be dealt with. Of course, i was and still am an activist, she says, slightly jarred at my question. I wouldnt compare myself to some friends that have been in prison but i took my part. and it is true, under apartheid, Gordimer had three of her novels banned for a serious length of time. although she rejects the notion of being a political writer, she did and does play a prominent role in the structure of our society, most recently in the opposition of the Media Tribunal and proposed Protection of State information Bill. She can even be seen surrounded by a gaggle of trannies at gender rights marches. Freedom to be what we are is still relevant, and has become a very important part of our recognition of the broadness of life. And that is where her fiction comes in. Fiction explores, it is a voyage of discovery into the realities of human existence, she says. i imagine her sticking to her morning routine of writing for four hours, a habit she got into after she was divorced from her first husband, Gerald Gavron, and raising their daughter on her own. The time between taking her to nursery school and picking her up was the time i wrote. She does confess, however, that she is going through a terrible state of change. Her two wonderful old electronic Olivetti typewriters are no longer useful as the manufacturer doesnt make the ribbons for them anymore. She says in the room next door sits a newly unwrapped computer that she has not yet mastered. a forbidding-looking thing like a television screen. an apple, i think. Something she feels she may be too old to learn. For someone who is on her way to england to launch a new book and has already scribbled out some new fiction after that, I find that difficult to believe. Her favourite South african author is Mongane Wally Serote whose work she greatly admires. He wrote a brilliant work that no one has come close to, Scatter The ashes and Go, published in 2002, a work with which he had the courage and knowledge to write. When asked what that meant, she said: Life is very complex and interesting and when i read someone, i am reading about how they deal with the world. Her home is immaculate and tasteful. The furniture is of a sturdy and dark wood. The floors are a kind that creak and groan and clump under your feet, which made exploring her home impossible while she was busy in the other room. But i did get some glimpses the staircase, the hallway, the pantry, a brief walk through the kitchen. Many well kept, finely placed ornaments, collected artefacts that are decidedly african. Chairs placed in the room or a hallway where no one would possibly sit. The brick fireplace even has a cast-iron frame, the kind of structure that

By Scott Smith

NADINE GORDIMER
Her life NadiNe Gordimer was born near Springs, an east Rand mining town about 50km east of Johannesburg, on November 20, 1923. although both parents were Jewish, she was raised in a largely secular environment and educated in part at a Catholic girls school. She began writing at an early age and published her first stories in 1937 at the age of 15, although she says she has been writing since she was nine. Gordimer had an early interest in racial and economic inequality in South Africa, helped on largely by her mother whose concern about the poverty and discrimination of black people in South africa led her to found a crche in Springs. Gordimer studied for a year at the University of the Witwatersrand but did not finish her degree. She schooled herself by studying the masters of European fiction, Proust, Chekhov and dostoyevsky, who were powerful role models. Gordimer moved to Johannesburg in 1948 where she has lived ever since. She married her second husband, Reinhold Cassirer, in 1954, a respected art dealer who established the South african Sothebys and later ran his own gallery. Their 47year marriage lasted until his death in 2001. Gordimer has a son and a daughter from her first marriage, both of whom live overseas. Her activism Gordimer took it upon herself to fight the government policies of racial segregation at the time. But it was the arrest of her friend, Bettie du Toit, in 1960 and the Sharpeville massacre that is believed to have spurred her into the anti-apartheid movement. Gordimer often travelled overseas to lecture at universities during the 60s and 70s but rejected any offers to live there permanently, saying that exile is a horrible thing, even in comfort. during this time, the South african government banned several of her works. The Late Bourgeois World was Gordimers first personal experience with censorship; it was banned in 1976 for a decade by the South african government and a World Of Strangers was banned for 12 years. Julys People was also banned. in South africa, she joined the african National Congress when it was still listed as an illegal organisation. She hid aNC leaders in her home to aid their escape from arrest by the government. Gordimer took her activism further and resisted censorship and state control of information. She refused to let her work be aired by the South african Broadcasting Corporation because it was state-controlled. Her works almost all of Gordimers works deal with themes of love and politics, particularly concerning race in South africa, and this is true of her most recent work. She never really wrote directly about politics and would reject being framed as a political writer; her stories talk of ordinary people, revealing moral ambiguities and choices. although Gordimer has written numerous works, including a multitude of short stories, letters, essays, plays, critiques, it is her novels that have made such an impact on the literary landscape, earning her the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991. Besides the Nobel Prize, she won the Booker Prize in 1974 for The Conservationist and has again been featured on the long list since then. She won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book from africa in 2002 and she has received at least 15 honorary degrees. Novels The Lying days (1953) a World Of Strangers (1958) Occasion For Loving (1963) The Late Bourgeois World (1966) A Guest Of Honour (1970) The Conservationist (1974) Joint winner of the Booker Prize in 1974 Burgers Daughter (1979) Julys People (1981) A Sport Of Nature (1987) My Sons Story (1990) None To accompany Me (1994) The House Gun (1998) The Pickup (2001) Get a Life (2005) No Time Like The Present (2012)

Biography

THE JOURNEY: Nadine Gordimer in Johannesburg in 1990. will outlast a lifetime. This home is the result of a life well lived and well considered, of someone who has achieved their goals and dreams so what keeps driving her? The drive is just there. if you are going to be an opera singer you are going to be born with the right kind of voice. There is something, i dont know where it is, that allows you to be a writer. But lots of people have the talent and skills, so she takes it a step further. it has to be an urge you cannot deny. i didnt want to be a writer, i wanted to be a ballet dancer, but i am glad i chose writing as i would be washed up as a ballet dancer by now, she says with a grin. Writing wasnt a goal for Gordimer, it was a need. i had to write in order to understand what life was. She seems to be eternally grateful that she never took the advice of her friends to take that job in advertising. She doesnt ascribe her talent to any higher power but does accept some kind of inner need, a desire. i know there is nobody up there, she says with firm conviction but that doesnt stop her from continuing the push to find truth and write it in her fiction. She quotes WB Yeats: What do we know but that we face one another in this place? From a quote like that one understands a little better her drive for social justice. Gordimer has lived in Johannesburg since around the end of 1948, she says. When she was young she wanted to be in the centre of it. and for a young girl from a small mining town on the east Rand, Johannesburg was the world, Johannesburg was Mecca. She refers to her earliest memory: i was around three and my grandmother took me to the theatre. i dont remember which one, but i remember this plush seat and sitting on my knees and turning around and looking at the people. it was being there. i loved it. So now, in the sunset of a glittering career, what could be next? She is keen to see how her latest novel is received by the public and loved ones, but she does confess it isnt excitement she feels. i will go on writing as i keep, i hope, the standard high. if it is not what it should be, i will stop. i have seen among ageing writers that these last-minute books are a travesty of what they have wanted to write. i am blessed to have earned my living and lived my life doing the one thing i knew i could and really wanted to do. it is a tremendous blessing. Only one regret lingers that she never learned an african language but she says with a stern nod, it is not too late for you. and she pats her beautiful grey Weimaraner hound with light amber eyes that could easily crumple her frail frame and wishes me well with my article. scotts@thenewage.co.za ACTIVIST: Nadine Gordimer in October, 1961.

Pictures: GALLO IMAGES