Anthony Sampson on Nadine Gordimer: 'She was conscious of living in a land of heroes'

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/15/anthony-sampson-nadine-gordimer-appreciation

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Nadine Gordimer was small and neat, with a bird-like vivacity and intensity. She talked as precisely as she wrote, telling stories dramatically, with acute observation and curiosity. But her sharp intelligence concealed a warmth and involvement that enriched her friends and gave her writing a deep compassion.

Her second husband, Reinhold, gave Nadine security and constant support, and she shared his love of the high veld, shooting and travelling. Together they rented an old-fashioned house in Parktown, near Johannesburg city centre, with a charming hilltop garden overlooking leafy suburbs. It was a Chekhovian house, Nadine liked to explain, apparently dominated by dogs and cats, where they resisted any pressures to modernise. The austere furniture, bare floorboards and primitive kitchen contrasted with impressionist pictures hung casually.

There Nadine presided with calm efficiency. She gave hospitable multiracial parties, undeterred by aggressive drinkers, and befriended many black politicians as well as writers. When she wrote a profile of Albert Luthuli, the president of the African National Congress, in the late 50s, she flouted apartheid laws by having him to stay there.

She found a European distraction when she and Reinhold bought a small hilltop house near Nice, and became enchanted by the rich and colourful countryside of France, where her daughter married and settled. But unlike so many South African writers, she was always pulled back to her home country.

She was very conscious of living in a "land of heroes", and was fascinated by the courage of Bram Fischer, who joined the resistance and later died in jail. "I didn't have the courage to be a complete revolutionary," she wrote later, "to face the possibility of jail for life. I had the selfishness of a writer. But I could not go on living there without moving to meet some of the demands of the times."

The 1970s were a difficult time. Censorship was pervasive while the new intellectuals of "black consciousness" distrusted white writers who they saw "stealing their lives". But Nadine was endlessly encouraging to African talent, wherever it came from. "I accepted that blacks wanted to take over culturally," she explained, "and that whites must stand in the wings until that developed."

Nadine was more isolated in Johannesburg as friends emigrated or opted out of politics, but she saw South Africa as providing her creative roots. "It's always been a nightmare in my mind, to be cut off." She wanted to see the end of the story in which she was becoming ever more closely implicated.

When Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990 it was like the end of a long siege. Four days later Nadine was invited to his mass rally at the football stadium. Mandela wanted her to collaborate in writing his memoirs: the plan was later frustrated by ANC colleagues, but she became a close friend of Mandela throughout his campaigns and later presidency.

Her Nobel prize for literature brought her more global fame, more travel and responsibilities, but it did not change her domestic lifestyle or her dedication to local politics and writers. She remained an optimist, encouraged by the commitment to reconciliation, and remained fortified by the values and courage of her black friends.

• Anthony Sampson died in 2004. He wrote this piece shortly before his death