Nadine Gordimer was born on November 20th, 1923 in South Africa, where she still resides today. Her father was a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania and her mother was English.

Nadine Gordimer has written at least 14 novels, 11 short story collections, and 3 non-fiction books.  She has written novels, plays, short stories and essays. Her first published writing was a short story called Quest for Seen Gold, she was 15. Her first novel was The Lying Days; it was published in 1953 and is described as being semi-autobiographical. Her novel, The Conservationist won the Booker Prize in 1974. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nadine Gordimer was very active in the anti-apartheid movement in her native South Africa. She joined the African National Congress (ANC) while it was still an illegal organization. As a result, several of her works were banned by the South African government.  Gordimer was one of the people who greeted Nelson Mandela when he was finally released from prison.  Gordimer remains politically active; she is the vice-president of International PEN , an organization that defends freedom of expression. PEN is very similar to Amnesty International in that it publicizes authors who are current imprisoned by their governments and fights for their release.

Nadine Gordimer remains a force in literature and in political activism; she is definitely a woman to be reckoned with.

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