Nadine Gordimer

(1923-) Novelist, political activist and playwright. Born in Springs in the Transvaal. One of South Africa’s most prominent novelists of the 20th century, she has written numerous novels and short stories over the years, garnering a string of awards for her uncompromising work. She has honorary doctorates from 14 universities and in 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

As a young writer she also dabbled with playwriting, and her play The First Circle won second prize in the FATSSA one-act playwriting competition in 1947. (Published in Six One-Act Plays by South African Authors (Pretoria:J.L. van Schaik,1949).