Nadine Gordimer Quotes

propos[ed] a future South Africa, not only on terms of equality of races but of sexes, too”

despite the fact that the narrative demonstrates that the voice of the ‘other’ can be heard and imagined, Gordimer’s attitude toward her own whiteness […] is resentful and hostile”

[T]he isotopy of fragmentation constitutes a unifying web structurally present at the level of story, text, and narration

Odd in-between period which sometimes inserts itself into historical time when not only the later historians but the actors and witnesses, the living themselves, become aware of an interval in time which is altogether determined by things that are no longer and by things that are not yet. In history, these intervals have shown more than once that they may contain the moment of truth.

People in the farming community understand how he must feel. Bad enough to have killed a man, without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well.

He knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer—regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando—shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa.

big, calm, clever son of Willem Van der Vyver

a moment of high excitement shared through the roof of the cab

Bad enough to have killed a man,” he believes they will say to themselves, “without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well

He [the victim] was my friend, I always took him hunting with me

Afrikaner farmer—a regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando”

She avoided walking past the barracks because of the machine guns the young sentries had in place of rifles.

The ugly mansions of the rich who had fled stood empty on the bluff above the sea.

She had not kissed on the mouth, she had not sought anonymous lips and tongues in the licence of festival. Yet she had kissed. Watching herself again, she knew that. She did not tell what happened not because her husband would suspect licence in her.

An accolade, one side a white cheek, the other a black. The white one she kissed on the left cheek, the black one on the right, as if these were two sides of one face.