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Article: Gordimer's 'Once Upon a Time.' (South African author Nadine Gordimer's 1989 short story)
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- June 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although she feels a "realistic optimism" (qtd. in Lazar 163) about her country now, throughout her nearly half-century-long writing career, Nadine Gordimer has been one of South Africa's main critics; thus her difficulties with governmental censorship. Her criticism, however, was usually indirect, woven into the multifaceted, often lyrical portraits of her native land, its life and people. But as she became more publicly committed to the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s, her criticism turned more overt, and, interestingly, her literary approach, always essentially realistic, became more experimental.(1) Even a small work, such as her 1989 short story "Once Upon a ...