15 July 2014
The South African Communist Party is saddened by the passing away of Nadine Gordimer on 13 July at the age of 90. The SACP expresses its deepest condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Nadine Gordimer, our liberation movement and the people as a whole for the immense loss suffered.
Nadine was a political activist in the ranks of our congress movement and liberation struggle as led by the African National Congress. She was a renowned writer who used her writing skills to engage in the battle of ideas as a key site of struggle, fighting against apartheid. Mercilessly committed against the truth, peace, justice and a better life for all, the apartheid regime banned many of Nadine`s writings.
Nadine`s principal works include 10 novels, A Guest of Honour, The Conservationist, Burger`s Daughter, July`s People, A Sport of Nature, My Son`s Story and her most recent, None to Accompany Me; 10 short stories including the most recent Jump (1991) and Why Haven`t You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972 (1992); and non-fictions The Essential Gesture, On the Mines and The Black Interpreters. Nadine was conferred with honorary degrees by local and international universities, among others Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand (South Africa); Yale, Harvard, Columbia, New School for Social Research, USA; University of Leuven, Belgium, University of York (England), Cambridge University (England).
Nadine made a series of excellent anti-apartheid films based on her writings. The SACP encourages broadcasters to screen this work in her memory.
An internationalist and founding member of the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW), in 1991 Nadine became the first South African and the first woman in 25 years to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The SACP was humbled when Nadine was by the Order of Friendship, Republic of Cuba, Nadine was honoured with. She was also the recipient of the Order of The Southers Cross, South Africa; and the Presidential Medal of Honour of the Republic of Chile.
Let us honour her legacy by intensifying the struggle for women`s emancipation, including the struggle to defeat the scourge of violence against women! Let us honour her by continuously expanding and deepening both participation and success in education! Let us honour her by raising the levels of revolutionary social consciousness through the pursuit of the artistic and Cultural Revolution.
May her memory live in the hearts of the people!
Issued by the SACP
Contact
Alex Mashilo - Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621