Synopses & Reviews
Review
"A young girl, as refugee fleeing home across a game preserve, endures a killing trek. She is divested of possessions, family, identity. The author bills her sojourn as 'The Ultimate Safari.' Having seduced and impregnated his wife-to-be, an Arab student sends her to meet his family accompanied only by her unborn child and a bomb, which destroys in midflight the jet she boards. A wealthy suburbanite finds his own son impaled on the razor edged wire circling his intruder-free enclave. The ironies are stark, but not so ponderous as to insult the reader. Not since Alan Paton has a white South African written so powerfully of life at the base of the globe. Gordimer shocks us, sometimes with microfine detail, just as often with a blinding clarity. This collection of stories fits a pattern the new Nobel laureate has led us to expect: parables often, but never preachments." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
About the Author
Nadine Gordimer is the author of eleven previous novels, as well as collections of stories and essays. She has received many awards, including the Booker Prize (for The Conservationist in 1974) and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Table of Contents
Jump and Other Stories Jump
Once Upon a Time
The Ultimate Safari
A Find
My Father Leaves Home
Some Are Born to Sweet Delight
Comrades
Teraloyna
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
Home
A Journey
Spoils
Safe Houses
What Were You Dreaming?
Keeping Fit
Amnesty