Author | Nadine Gordimer |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Jonathan Cape (UK) Viking Press (US) |
Publication date | 1974 |
Publication place | South Africa |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 252 pp (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 0-224-01035-2 (first edition, hardback) |
OCLC | 3103361 |
823 | |
LC Class | PZ4.G66 Co PR9369.3.G6 |
The Conservationist is a 1974 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. The book was a joint winner of the Booker-McConnell Prize for fiction. [1] It is described as more complex in design and technique than Gordimer's earlier novels. [2]
In South Africa under apartheid, Mehring is a rich white businessman who is not satisfied with his life. His ex-wife has gone to America, his liberal son, Terry (who is probably gay) criticizes his conservative/capitalist ways, and his lovers and colleagues do not actually seem interested in him. On a whim he buys a 400-acre farm outside the city, afterwards trying to explain this purchase to himself as the search for a higher meaning in life. But it is clear that he knows next to nothing about farming, and that black workers run it – Mehring is simply an outsider, an intruder on the daily life of "his" farm. His objective in buying the farm is to make a tax deductible expense. "No farm is beautiful unless it's productive," says Mehring. Plus it is proper for his amorous escapades. Land was a thing of his race. He once visits his farm with his girlfriend, Antonia.
One day the black foreman, Jacobus, finds an unidentified dead body on the farm. Since the dead man is black, the police find no urgency to look into the case and simply bury the body on the spot where it was found. The idea of an unknown black man buried on his land begins to "haunt" Mehring. A flood brings the body back to the surface; although the farm workers do not know the stranger, they now give him a proper burial as if he were a family member. There are hints that Mehring's own burial will be less emotional than this burial of a stranger. [3]
Political and resurrection themes are combined to convey a larger meaning. The sterility of white has been depicted in Mehring's attempts of keeping his farm. He tries to conserve both nature and apartheid, while nature fails him and doesn't return what he had given to it. The dead body laying claim to his land is the embodiment of Africa, having no land of its own while in fact possessing all of Africa. [4]
He is the protagonist, an antihero of the novel. In his middle age, he is an attractive figure and has already had a number of mistresses. He is a frequent traveller and a calculating businessman.
She is the mistress of Mehring with olive complexion and dark hair. She is a revolutionary activist and has often a brush with law. She has to leave Africa as her life is in danger.
Son of Mehring who has left him long ago.
Works as a foreman at Mehring's farm. He breaks the news of the dead body to Mehring.
Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity".
Burger's Daughter is a political and historical novel by the South African Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Nadine Gordimer, first published in the United Kingdom in June 1979 by Jonathan Cape. The book was expected to be banned in South Africa, and a month after publication in London the import and sale of the book in South Africa was prohibited by the Publications Control Board. Three months later, the Publications Appeal Board overturned the banning and the restrictions were lifted.
South African literature is the literature of South Africa, which has 11 national languages: Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, Swazi, Tsonga and Ndebele.
July's People is a 1981 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It is set in a near-future version of South Africa where apartheid is ended through a civil war. Unlike Gordimer's earlier work, the novel was ignored by the apartheid government's censor, though the book's South African publisher was later raided by the Security Police.
Get a Life is a 2005 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. The novel tells the story of environmental activist Paul Bannerman and his family. Paul is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery and subsequent radiation treatment, has to live quarantined at his parents' place for some time. This significant change in his life also affects his family. The novel received mixed reviews by critics, and departs from other novels by Gordimer as it does not directly deal with Apartheid, instead focusing on the struggle of a single individual.
The Soft Voice of the Serpent and Other Stories is the second short story collection by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer, and her first to be published outside South Africa. It was published on May 23, 1952, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz in 1953. It overlaps substantially with her first short story collection, Face to Face (1949), and the stories are set in South Africa.
There is a wide range of ways in which people have represented apartheid in popular culture. During (1948–1994) and following the apartheid era in South Africa, apartheid has been referenced in many books, films, and other forms of art and literature.
Ronald Suresh Roberts is a British West Indian writer and lawyer. He is best known for his biographies of two leading figures in the "New South Africa", author Nadine Gordimer and former South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Holiday is a novel by English writer Stanley Middleton published in 1974 by Hutchinson. The novel along with Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist jointly won the Booker Prize in 1974.
Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful (1981) is the third and final novel by South African author Alan Paton. Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful is set in the 1950s, after apartheid was established in postwar South Africa. The historical novel explores fictional characters interacting with historical figures working to resist these laws.
Bernard Friedman was a South African surgeon, politician, author, and businessman who co-founded the anti-apartheid Progressive Party.
No Time Like the Present is a 2012 novel by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It was Gordimer's last published novel during her lifetime. The novel deals with a variety of issues in contemporary South Africa, including unemployment, HIV-AIDS, and corruption.
My Son's Story is the ninth novel by South African novelist Nadine Gordimer. It was written towards the end of the State of Emergency and first published in 1990. The very next year, Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Swedish Academy explicitly cited My Son's Story in their press release, calling it "ingenious and revealing and at the same time enthralling".
The Lying Days is the debut novel of Nobel winning South African novelist, Nadine Gordimer. It was published in 1953 in London by Victor Gollancz and New York by Simon & Schuster. It is Gordimer's third published book, following two collections of short stories, Face to Face (1949), and The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952). The novel is semi-autobiographical, with the main character coming from a small mining town in Africa similar to Gordimer's own childhood in Springs. The novel is also a bildungsroman "about waking up from the naivete of a small colonial town."
Occasion for Loving is a 1963 novel by South African author Nadine Gordimer. It was her third published novel and sixth published book.
A World of Strangers is a 1958 novel by South African novelist Nadine Gordimer. The novel included mixed reviews, drawing criticism for its pedantic explanation of Gordimer's worldview. The novel was banned in South Africa for 12 years.
None to Accompany Me is a 1994 novel by South African Nobel Winner Nadine Gordimer. The novel follows the motifs and plot framework of a Bildungsroman, exploring the development of the main character, Vera Stark. The novel is set during the early 1990s in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela.
Bettie du Toit OLS was a trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.
The Promise is a 2021 novel by South African novelist Damon Galgut, published in May 2021, by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa. It was published by Europa Editions in the US and by Chatto & Windus in the UK.
The 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the South African activist and writer Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity." She is the 7th female and first South African recipient of the prize followed by J. M. Coetzee in 2003.