The Essential Gesture. Writing, Politics and Places

London England: Jonathan Cape. Hardback. First Edition. Foxing to edge and inside D/J. flaps. Over four decades of writing fiction the author has conveyed imaginateively the realities of transition in South Africa. Many may not realise that she has also produced a remarkable array of non-fiction which reveals much about the transitions of the artist herself. Stephen Clingman, in close collaboration with Nadine Gordimer, has compiled an exhaustive catalogue of some 160 titles, from which he has made this outstanding selection. As he explians in his introduction, the essays illustrate the relationship between outer and inner change for the writer of conscience in South Africa. From the relative optimisim of the 1950s, to Sharpeville and the banning in the 1960s of the ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress, to the challenges of the Black Consciousness movement in the 1970s and the 'interregnum' of the 1980s, Nadine Gordimer rigorously analyses prolitical events - while examining the political implications of her writing. Her stand on censorship is unequivocal; her commitment to the community writers - black and white - is forthright. Her unforgettable travel pieces testify to an eye and ear as redily attuned to the incongruous as the magnificent. The sheer stimulation of Gordimer's arguments, the brilliance of her observation, the vulnerability and toughness of her position emerge clearly in these pages. To followe where her thoughts and experiences lead, as to read her fiction, is an inspiration. 356 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.) . Very Good. Cloth. First Edition. 1988.