SOURCE: Gordimer, Nadine. “English-Language Literature and Politics in South Africa.” In Aspects of South African Literature, edited by Christopher Heywood, pp. 99-120. London: Heinemann, 1976.

Gordimer, who in 1991 received the Nobel Prize in literature, was a seminal literary figure in the anti-apartheid movement. Throughout her career, her novels and short stories have emphasized the dehumanizing effects of the apartheid system. In addition, she is also known for her many polemical and scholarly essays on censorship and the relationship between literature and politics. In the following essay, Gordimer provides an overview of Anglophone South African writing, focusing on literature produced during and in reaction to the apartheid state.

Speaking of South Africa, the association of politics with literature produces a snap equation: censorship. But is that the beginning and end of my subject? Indeed, it may be the end, in a literal sense, of a book or a writer: the...