Quote by Nadine Gordimer

"Nadine Gordimer writes about black people with such astounding sensibilities and sensitivity-not patronizing, not romantic, just real. And Eudora Welty does the same thing. Lillian Hellman has done it. Now, we might categorize these women as geniuses of a certain sort, but if they can write about it, it means that it is possible. They didn't say, "Oh, my God, I can't write about black people"; it didn't stop them. There are white people who do respond that way though, assuming there's some huge barrier. But if you can relate to Beowolf and Jesus Christ when you read about them, it shouldn't be so difficult to relate to black literature."

— Nadine Gordimer

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Booker Prize winners Jewish atheists Women academics from South Africa Novelists from South Africa Jews from South Africa

Original Language: English

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Sources

1980 interview in Conversations with Toni Morrison edited by Danille K. Taylor-Guthrie (1994)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nadine_Gordimer

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Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 – 13 July 2014) was a South African Jewish novelist and writer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in literature and 1974 Booker Prize.*, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity".

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