Nadine Gordimer has never written an autobiography or produced testimonies. She works in the imaginative dimension, always on an expedition into the mysteries of human experience. She does not appear “armed and dangerous,” as her friend Ronnie Kasrils, one-time terrorist, later cabinet minister, was described by the police as late as 1992; but, in fact, she is, for hardly anyone has so vividly alerted the world to how apartheid undermined relations between people and made innocence criminal.
“Nothing I say in essays and articles will be as true as my fiction,” she stated in an interview in Transition. Because fiction is a disguise, it can “encompass all the things that go unsaid among other people and in yourself... There is always, subconsciously, some kind of self-censorship in nonfiction.” She added that, in a certain sense, a writer is selected by her subject, which is the consciousness of her own era.
Today, Nadine Gordimer lives and writes in a half-formed society of a kind almost never before seen on earth. Black and white have agreed to bring about a multiracial democracy by their faith as much as by their work. But the present stems from the past, and apartheid’s contempt for human life now expresses itself in street killings, and armed robbery.
Gordimer’s territory has always been the border between private emotions and external forces. There are no neutral zones where people can rest unobserved. In a land of lies, everyone lives a double life. Only love stands for a sort of liberty, the glimpse of a more truthful existence. Outside the lovers’ chamber, there is a society, greedy, immoral where empathy and responsibility for others, whatever skin colour, are rare. Thus, every meeting becomes instrumental or absurd. In many of her stories, Gordimer reminds us that the future of South Africa is not only a question of votes for all but one that requires immense effort to create a civil spirit, allowing people to look each other in the eye.
The responsibility of love and the loss of understanding, the loss of a grip on the world that comes with the end of love, are central themes in all of Gordimer’s books. She is a moralist of a kind Alfred Nobel would have approved. She finds an uncommitted life not worth living. Her revolutionaries or human rights lawyers may have agonising personal problems, but they do not give up. In her later novels, there are people with energy and vision, as well as those who see nothing clearly — the former women, the latter often men. Gordimer seems to keep her characters at a distance in order to maintain a sense of the unknowable. Then one may discover, as André Brink says, “that one’s very attempt at understanding or confronting the mystery opens up spaces of awareness one has not suspected before.” Her true concerns reach beyond issues of the time to test the limits of human relationships and of language itself _____.
1. It is true of Nadine Gordimer that .
[A] she is a politician and enthusiastic opponent of apartheid
[B] her work is of moral force but lacking in imagination
[C] she has kept the true face of racism in front of us
[D] her work presents the portrait of the development of South Africa
2. To which of the following statements would Nadine Gordimer be least likely to agree?
[A] Violence should be used during the anti-apartheid struggle.
[B] Novels are freer in expression and more faithful to truth.
[C] Spritual equality is as important as political equality.
[D] A writer is influenced by the context in which he or she is.
3. By “the present stems from the past”(Line 3, Paragraph 3), the author means _____.
[A] apartheid’s injustice still bring about social crimes today
[B] South Africa is on the journey towards a multiracial democracy
[C] multiracial democracy can help solve complex society problems
[D] the influence of racism shows sign of increasing
4. What are the central themes of Gordimer’s works?
[A] The racism and democracy of South Africa.
[B] The relations between blacks and whites.
[C] The growth of black consciousness.
[D] Impacts of politics on the personal emotions.
5. Gordimer’s main characters seem to be _____.
[A] the oppressed blacks
[B] resolute political fighters
[C] men of extraordinary intelligence
[D] short-sighted women
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