The Pickup (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Nadine Gordimer
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The late twentieth century
- Setting: South Africa and an unnamed desert country
- Principal Characters: Julie Summers, Nigel Ackroyd Summers, Danielle Summers, Beverly, Dr. Archibald “Uncle Archie” Summers, Ibrahim “Abdu” ibn Musa, Mother, Yaqub, Maryam, Khadija, Zayd
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: Africa or Africans, Love or romance, Twentieth century, South Africa or South Africans, Aliens, illegal, Deserts, Arabs, Bedouins
- Locales: South Africa
In The Pickup, Nadine Gordimer again explores the theme of interracial, intercultural relationships such as those at the center of The Lying Days (1953) and A Sport of Nature (1987). Here, however, the context is not apartheid. Rather it is the plight of the immigrant, especially the illegal immigrant, that draws her attention. What if, Gordimer asks, a well-to-do young woman, a white South African with Irish and Scots ancestry living on her own in a kind of bohemian independence, with a wealthy and well-connected father, were to encounter a young, attractive Arab...
[The entire page is 1905 words long]
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