On the cover of our fifth edition, the first one for 2009, she sits on a chair with her hand under her chin and her legs crossed. She looks serenely, and perhaps a touch forlornly, into the distance. She looks at peace. She is at peace. She is Nadine Gordimer, South Africa’s colossal writer, a writer who has been around for some time and one who doesn’t seem ready to vacate the scene – not yet anyway. If you have been writing all your life, if your preoccupation has been to craft stories that are rated among the finest literature of the past century, it’s presumably hard to even think of leaving the scene. Hers has been a life well lived. A life where a choice had to be made: turn a blind eye to brutal injustice or stand up and fight it. We all know her choice.

Immediately after settling on Gordimer as our main subject in this edition, it became clear that it would take some manoeuvering to achieve the goal. Most of those I spoke to about the idea of profiling Gordimer promptly mentioned how prickly she could be. Some even asked: why Gordimer? When prompted for a reason, not a single convincing argument was forthcoming. So, I pressed on with making arrangements to interview her and take her pictures. It was especially tricky as Tim Keegan, the writer of the profile, was in Muizenberg, Cape Town, where he lives, and Gordimer is based in Joburg. She’s not on e-mail and the phone was out of the question. To reach her, it’s better to fax. Raks Seakhoa, a common friend, rescued the situation by organising the interview.

So it was on a bright sunny afternoon, in the middle of March, that I, a nervous wreck, went to the Gordimer house in Parktown West, Johannesburg, with photographer, Johannes Dreyer, and his assistant, Thabiso Sekgala. I was armed with a list of questions from Tim. As it turned out, Gordimer’s disposition matched the weather outside. She proved a warm host, readily agreeing to our requests: first the interview and then the shoot outside. It was hard to reconcile the scary tales we had been told with the gracious welcome we received. The urge to pinch myself was overwhelming.

In person, Gordimer strikes one as fiercely intelligent. Her mind is full of vitality. She answered all questions with well-enunciated answers. While talking, Gordimer would digress to other related points, going so far out I’d fear she’d lose her way trying to get back to her original point, but come back she did, with miraculous ease, as if she’d never strayed in the first place. Of course, I knew I was in the presence of greatness, but still I found the workings of her mind – the ability to recollect even the minutest details and craft illuminating points on various subjects – to be awesome to the point of jaw-dropping.

As a literary journal that seeks both to promote new South African writing and to pay homage to the literary masters of the past, we at Wordsetc are privileged and honoured to help carry the torch across the bridge of time. Gordimer’s books, as Dr Mongane Wally Serote says elsewhere in these pages, are a mirror to our society. Her impressive body of work must be read by anyone who considers himself or herself a serious reader. Her trajectory from a child growing up in Benoni with a precocious talent for writing, to winning a Booker Prize in 1974 with The Conservationist, and a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 is a source of both awe and inspiration. Gordimer deserves to be appreciated a lot more. She is truly a national treasure.

Phakama Mbonambi
Publishing editor