Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954-2008
by: Gordimer, Nadine

Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 752 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. A tight copy. Never before has Gordimer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, published such a comprehensive collection of her nonfiction. Telling Times represents the full span of her works in that field-from the twilight of white rule in South Africa to the fight to overthrow the apartheid regime, and most recently, her role over the past seven years in confronting the contemporary phenomena of violence and the dangers of HIV. The range of this book is staggering, and the work in totality celebrates the lively perseverance of the life-loving individual in the face of political tumult, then the onslaught of a globalized world. The abiding passionate spirit that informs "A South African Childhood," a youthful autobiographical piece published in The New Yorker in 1954, can be found in each of the book's ninety-one pieces that span a period of fifty-five years.