Then and Now: Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter (1979) and No Time Like the Present (2012)

Abstract

I explore two of Gordimer's novels, Burger's Daughter (1979) and No Time Like the Present (2012), the one written 'then', in apartheid times, the other written 'now', in post-apartheid times. Both, in different ways, subject personal dilemmas to political aspirations. Gordimer reminds the reader that she, as author, continued to test ideals against 'methodical doubt', and that she remained a 'romantic struggling with reality'.