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Nadine Gordimer

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Writing and politics
"Nadine Gordimer says she is not a political person; yet her writings document, decade
by decade, the impact of politics on personal lives and what an increasingly radical
white South African woman felt, thought and imagined during the rise and fall of
apartheid" (Bazin). Even though Gordimer makes no claims of being politically
motivated, every interviewer seems to quiz her on politics, and every critic seems to
consider the influence of politics in her writing. She is often criticized as not knowing enough about the situations she writes about to be able to portray them correctly. It is also pointed out, though, that "…Gordimer makes no suggestion that she possesses insider knowledge, however
achieved, of the cultural or historical contexts from which their novels arise"
(Greenstein). To Gordimer, writing is not a political act. Politics are corruption; writing is art and art should be separated from things that would limit it. "In defining the writer's imagination as a form of truth telling that can not be impeded or denied, even by the radical separation of people imposed by apartheid, Writing and Being also asserts that art must not be narrowed to the immediate, strategically or ideologically driven purposes of resistance or political action" (Greenstein). Gordimer has done nothing that would be cause to deny her abilities as a writer or to dismiss her work as unimportant. "Gordimer clear-sightedly condemns the penchant for the exotic, the corrupting fascination with the dispossessed, that manifested itself as "revolutionary tourism" on the part of opportunistic travelers in the 1980s….Despite her astringent rejection of such behavior, Gordimer will continue to be dismissed by some, especially in South Africa , as irrelevant" (Greenstein). So should writers use their gift for political reasons? Is there a social obligation that writers have to use their talent for purposes other than art? "Seeing literature as...