Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Essay on The Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer, Judith Newman - The Lying Days In History

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

THE LYING DAYS IN HISTORY

PUBLIC RESPONSE

In South Africa it is not easy to speak of “the public.” In a fractured society, and a society with such a poor literacy rate, public response to Gordimer's writing has often been that of either a hostile, white, pro-government majority or that of a small, educated, oppositional elite. Outside South Africa, however, the strength of the international response to her writing may be measured by the public's reaction when her German publishers reprinted her books, including The Lying Days. Lines of thousands stretched around the building to obtain copies. Because the novel is her first, published before the censorship laws began to bite in South Africa, it is also one of her few works that could be responded to freely when it appeared. Several of her other novels were banned from publication or delayed by being placed under embargo. Unlike later overtly political novels, The Lying Days was...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Essay: Introduction
3. Themes In The Lying Days
4. Critical Response To The Lying Days
5. The Lying Days In History
6. The Lying Days As Studied
7. Further Reading
8. Copyright

1. Nadine Gordimer