Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Gordimer, Nadine (Vol. 123) - Gail Godwin (review date April 1976)

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Gail Godwin (review date April 1976)

SOURCE: "Out of Africa and India," in Harper's Magazine, Vol. 252, No. 1511, April, 1976, pp. 101-02.

[In the following excerpt, Godwin discusses the changing African dimension of the characters in Selected Stories.]

Reading a collection of stories by a good writer affords a pleasure quite distinct from reading a novel by the same writer. The pleasure comes from the activeness demanded from the reader, from the quick leaps of synthesis he must make as he skips around in the book, pouncing on the stories that promise to attract him most, surprising the author in a variety of themes, moods, and stances as the author moves through his own time: the writing-time of the stories. Reading a collection of stories written out of a high-quality perceptiveness is like stalking the master stalker: you can sneak up on him at any angle and watch him pursue the prey. There are no long securities staked out for you at...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Charles Poore (review date 8 May 1965)
   2. Adrian Mitchell (review date 23 May 1965)
   3. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 22 July 1965)
   4. Patrick Cruttwell (review date Autumn 1965)
   5. Gail Godwin (review date April 1976)
   6. George Kearns (review date Winter 1984–85)
   7. Sylvia Clayton (review date 15-18 April 1984)
   8. Judie Newman (essay date 1985)
   9. Dick Roraback (review date 6 October 1991)
   10. John Bayley (review date 5 December 1991)
   11. Barbara J. Eckstein (essay date Winter 1992)
   12. Nadine Gordimer with Claudia Dreifus (interview date January 1992)
   13. Thomas Knipp (essay date Spring 1993)
   14. Graham Huggan (essay date Winter 1994)
   15. Rosemary Dinnage (review date 9 September 1994)
   16. Richard Eder (review date 18 September 1994)
   17. Richard Bausch (review date 25 September 1994)
   18. Michael Wood (review date 1 December 1994)
   19. Jeremy Harding (review date 12 January 1995)
   20. Philip Graham (review date 5 November 1995)
   21. Nancy Topping Bazin (essay date 1995)
   22. Edith Milton (review date June 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Nadine Gordimer