SOURCE: "Stories from Africa," in The New York Times Book Review, June 15, 1952, p. 17.

William Peden is an American critic and educator who has written extensively on the American short story and on American historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. In the following review, he applauds Gordimer's debut volume of short fiction, The Soft Voice of the Serpent.

A native of South Africa, where she still Uves, Nadine Gordimer has published several of her stories in American magazines (The New Yorker, Harper's, The Virginia Quarterly). [The Soft Voice of the Serpent] is her first published volume, and her debut is an exciting one. Miss Gordimer is very young—in her early twenties, according to her publishers—and very talented.

All of these stories have South Africa as their setting. Miss Gordimer possesses a keen eye, a sharp ear and a devastating sense of smell. Place...