Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, South Africa in 1923. Gordimer was born into a white middle-class family that had significant privilege. Her first short story was published in a magazine when she was 15 years old. She read widely as a child and became informed about the different sides of apartheid, the system of segregated oppression, in South Africa.
Her first book, Face to Face, was a collection of short stories published in 1949. Her first novel, The Lying Days, was published in 1953. With these two books, she established a signature style of clear, unsentimental writing. From the beginning of her career, she wrote about the horrific effect and actions of apartheid in her...
