Last Archival Blog

Today when working with my archival project I made a few discoveries in Gordimer’s work. I located the “lost folder” I had been searching for and in it found many ideas to continue with my question, also a couple of smaller questions that will aide me in my research. The folder contained two blue book type of documents both filled to capacity with mini book reviews. These were all the books Gordimer had read during the year of 1938. 

Beside each book she wrote the title, author, and her opinion of the book—which was either Bad, Good, Quite Good, or Very Good. I chose to take a closer look at the books which she titled “Very Good”. A couple of authors were traditionally children’s authors, as she was just 15 years old, but the majority were not. Her favorite book out of all of them was “Gone with the Wind”. She found Scarlett O’Hara’s character to be very captivating. Another favorite was “They seek a country” by an author that appears a few times on her list, Francis Brett Young. This is about a young man who comes over to South Africa from poverty, is forced into imprisonment and falls in love with an African girl. This has a very simlar theme as mnay of Gordimer’s works. 

My original question was, How is Gordimer’s work influenced by other authors? I will continue this question by looking more closely at the possible influences these other authors had on her work, but I now want to know specifically how they informed her interest in Apartheid? As a young white South African woman, why would she be so drawn to social injustice? Seems she was so young to be that passionate.