Nadine Gordimer, No Cold Kitchen

Interesting conflict between Nadine Gordimer and her biographer Ronald Suresh Roberts detailed in the N.Y.T.. His book "No Cold Kitchen", was originally under contract to Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the United States and Bloomsbury in Britain , both houses — which also publish Gordimer — declined to publish it after Gordimer expressed objections to the manuscript and accused Roberts of breach of trust. “We weren’t satisfied with some aspects of the book,” said Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus, who acquired the book in 1998. “We asked for revisions and we haven’t heard from him.” Instead, Roberts published the book last fall in South Africa with STE, a self-described black empowerment publishing house.

The Gordimer-Roberts dispute is emblematic of the larger political situation in South Africa, highlighting in particular the uncertain role of white anti-apartheid activists now that the African National Congress has become the government. Gordimer, who has been active with the A.N.C. since the ’70s, when it was an illegal organization, may still be lionized abroad, but at home she finds herself criticized from all sides. Some find her too beholden to the A.N.C., while others have accused her of betraying its revolutionary promise by pointing to the government’s shortcomings.

I just finished reached the Pick Up, a wonderful book by Nadine Gordimer. It was about the an illegal from North Africa, working in South Africa. She is steadily becoming one of my favourite authors.