1st Edition

Nadine Gordimer's July's People A Routledge Study Guide

By Brendon Nicholls Copyright 2011
    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    Nadine Gordimer is one of the most important writers to emerge in the twentieth century. Her anti-Apartheid novel July's People (1981) is a powerful example of resistance writing and continues even now to unsettle easy assumptions about issues of power, race, gender and identity.

    This guide to Gordimer's compelling novel offers:

    • an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of July's People
    • a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
    • a selection of new and reprinted critical essays on July's People, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key approaches identified in the critical survey
    • cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
    • suggestions for further reading.

    Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of July's People and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Gordimer's text.

    Acknowledgements  Notes and References  Introduction  1: Text and Contexts  Nadine Gordimer: Life and Works  Apartheid South Africa: History and Culture  July’s People: detailed discussion   2: Critical History  Early Reviews  The 1980s  The 1990s  July’s People in the New Millenium  Post-Apartheid Controversy  3: Critical Readings  From The Lying Days to July’s People: The Novels of Nadine Gordimer,’ by Robert Green ‘July’s People,’ by Judie Newman  ‘July’s People,’ by Stephen Clingman   ‘July’s People in Context: Apartheid’s Dystopias Abroad,’ by Andrew van der Vlies  ‘Postcolonial Apocalypse and the Crisis of Representation in July’s People,’ by Oliver Lovesey  Further Reading

    Biography

    Brendon Nicholls is Lecturer in Postcolonial and African Literatures in the School of English, University of Leeds. He is author of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gender, and the Ethics of Postcolonial Reading (2010).