"Comrades" by Nadine Gordimer -Project 196-South Africa

"Comrades" by Nadine Gordimer (1991, 5 pages)

Project 196

South Africa

19 of 196 Countries

Nadine Gordimer

1. Georgia 
2. Canada
3. U. S. A.
4. The Republic of Korea
5. Antigua and Barbuda 
6. Haiti
7. Trinidad and Tobago 
8. Ukraine
9. Cameroon
10. Botswana
11. Sudan
12. Dominica 
13. Israel
14. Syria
15. Ethiopia
16. Zimbabwe
17. Peru
18. Chile
19. South Africa

When selecting a short story for South Africa I was very happy to see a work by the Nobel Prize  (1991) winning Nadine Gordimer (1923-South Africa)  in an anthology my daughter Valerie gave me for Christmas, The Penguin Book of International Women's Short Stories.   I have previously posted on a novel by Gordimer, My Son's Story, which deals with race relations in South Africa and today's short story, "Comrades" focuses on these same issues.  

The story is told in the first person by an affluent Caucasian South Africa woman who is deeply committed to the cause of racial equality and justice.  She is in attendance at a large conference and when her car is approached by a group of black teenagers her first impulse, which she feels ashamed of, is to lock her door.  Then she says no these people are here for the conference and they will not rob me.  She is in a chauffeur driven vehicle and she invites the teens to get in the car and go to her house for something to eat.   You can tell she does not really feel at ease with them.   When they get back to her  house she does not want them to see that she has a black maid.   She serves them a meal and begins to converse with them.  They are not college students from middle class families, the boys will be destined to be soldiers and the girls will be maids or wives.   She imagines they are silent because they are somehow shocked  by the beauty of her house.  In a revelation to her at the end, the only part of her world that even registered on them was the food she gave them that temporarily stopped their hunger.   

This was a a very well done story that lets us see the woman come to a realization about her self and her relationship to the teenagers.   

Author Data and some social background on South Africa

 (1923-) born in Johannesburg South Africa in a time of institutionalized legally mandated white supremacy.    Citizens were legally classified as either pure white, black or colored by the government. (Indians were also treated as a separate class of citizen.)   Where one could live was determined by your race.   Where you could go to school was determined by this.  In most areas, only whites were allowed to use the libraries, for example.   The wealth of the country was concentrated in the hands of whites.    Here is a good summery of the history of racial relations in South Africa (from Wikipedia.com):

"Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times, but apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. New legislation classified inhabitants into racial groups ("black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian"), and residential areas were segregated by means of forced removals. From 1958, Blacks were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of whites.

Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence as well as a long trade embargo against South Africa.[1] A series of popular uprisings and protests were met with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. As unrest spread and became more violent, state organizations responded with increasing repression and state-sponsored violence."

"Sunshine" by Lynn Freed A 2011 Pen/ O. Henry Prize Story

"Sunshine" by Lynn Freed (2011)

One of the premier annual short story anthologies in the world is the Pen/O Henry Prize Stores collection.   These collections first began in 1919 and is open to short stories in American and Canadian magazines.    Inclusion in the collection is a great honor and some of the greatest writers of the world have been published in these collections.   I have decided to read through all and post on some of the best of the stories in the 2011 collection and then proceed to the 2012 collection.  The 2005 and 2006 collections are also available as E books and perhaps I will read through them also.    I only began to read contemporary short stories about two years ago so most of these writers, even though many are in fact very well known, will be new to me writers.  Very few of the stories can be read online but a lot of the writers do have web pages so maybe you can sample their work a bit.

I plan just for fun to keep track of my personal top three 2011 O. Henry Prize Stories.   Given that I have only read two so far here they are:

1.  "Sunshine" by Lynn Freed-way the best so far
2.  "Pole, Pole" by Susan Minot

I really loved "Sunshine" by Lynn Freed (South Africa).   It is a story about a wealthy man whose servants bring him in a wild girl they found in the jungle,  maybe ten.      He has the girl cleaned up, keeps her in a cage for a while so she can become more tame and then he rapes her.  He has done this many times before.   He lives in a terribly poor place where people sometimes abandon their children, especially their daughters.    The servants tell the man that the girl acts like she was raised by baboons which sets the story in either India or Africa, we are not told where it takes place.  The man also preys on the children of the village, knowing his wealth will keep him in a steady supply of young girls.   The story is told in a very flat almost deadpan way and it really is flat out brilliant.   This story is not online anywhere as far as I know but there are several other stories that can be linked to from Freed's web page.

Official Author Biography

Bio & Education

LYNN FREED was born and grew up in Durban, South Africa. She came to New York as a graduate student, receiving her M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Columbia University.

After moving to San Francisco, she wrote her first novel, HEART CHANGE (republished as FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY). Since then, she has published five more novels: HOME GROUND, THE BUNGALOW, THE MIRROR, HOUSE OFWOMEN and THE SERVANTS’ QUARTERS. In 2004, her first collection of short stories, THE CURSE OF THEAPPROPRIATE MAN, was published, and, in 2005, her first collection of essays, READING, WRITING & LEAVINGHOME: LIFE ON THE PAGE.

Ms. Freed’s short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Southwest Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, The Santa Monica Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, Mirabella, Elle, House Beautiful, House & Garden, and Vogue, among others. Her work is widely translated, and is included in a number of anthologies.

In 2011 Ms. Freed won a PEN/O. Henry Award for the short story, “Sunshine”, which is included in the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011. Prior to that, she had stories listed both in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES and THE PEN/O.HENRY PRIZE SHORT STORY collections. She has won the Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Award for Fiction (HOMEGROUND), and has subsequently had four books nominated for the same award. Most of her books have appeared on The New York Times “Notable Books of the Year” list as well as on its “New & Noteworthy Paperback” list, as they have on the lists of The Washington Post and other journals.

In 2002, Ms. Freed was awarded the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Guggenheim Foundation and been awarded residency fellowships supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, The Camargo Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Bogliasco Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, among others.

Ms. Freed is Professor of English at the University of California in Davis.

You can learn more about her work and read some of her stories on her webpage.   

Mel u