Burger's Daughter
by Nadine Gordimer | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0140055932 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0140055932 Global Overview for this book
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
Burger’s Daughter is a novel that explores the impossibility and the necessity of a private life. In South Africa in the late 1960s and 1970s, private life is a luxury, belonging only to those whites who can blind themselves to the fact that their “normality” is underpinned by other peoples’ suffering. For Rosa Burger, a private life comes also to be a necessity, a strategy for survival after the death of her father in prison, a means whereby she can resist the absorption of herself into his reputation and his South Africa.
Both of Rosa’s parents were Afrikaner Marxists, freedom fighters, figures for whom politics was no respecter of the thin line demarcating the supposed sanctity of the private domain. By the novel’s end, Rosa Burger is also in prison. But in the defeat of her painful attempt to carve out a life of her own there is a strange liberation.
Gordimer articulates a critique of what passes for “freedom” through the anguish of a white woman trapped in a past not of her making. The untold histories interlaced with the story of her struggle are the stories of migrant miners, factory workers, homeless servants, and landless peasants. This corrodes sympathy, leaving the reader no choice but to read on, to be glad this novel was written, and to regret the need for it to be written. — Patricia McManus in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Rosa Burger grew up in a home under constant surveillance by the South African government. Her parents were detained for their political beliefs; her father died in prison, and her mother, whose health suffered from her time in jail, eventually dies. Rosa, a white South African in her early twenties, is left the only surviving member of her family. Yet even after her parents' deaths, the history of their anti-apartheid beliefs and practices have a daily impact on her life: it seems everyone has expectations of her and the government is still watching. A quiet, private person, Rosa constantly searches her memories to find herself, to grasp this heritage that weighs her down. Over a period of several years Rosa comes to understand the impact of the South African political climate on her and how she became who she is. Take time to read this novel; the political realities it describes are complicated. The narrative style varies from straightforward storytelling to Rosa's most personal thoughts. In Burger's Daughter, Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer takes a situation most read about in newspapers and makes it real, creating a memorable story of coming to terms with circumstances over which we have little control, yet which directly affect our lives. — Holly Smith in 500 Great Books by Women
Both of Rosa’s parents were Afrikaner Marxists, freedom fighters, figures for whom politics was no respecter of the thin line demarcating the supposed sanctity of the private domain. By the novel’s end, Rosa Burger is also in prison. But in the defeat of her painful attempt to carve out a life of her own there is a strange liberation.
Gordimer articulates a critique of what passes for “freedom” through the anguish of a white woman trapped in a past not of her making. The untold histories interlaced with the story of her struggle are the stories of migrant miners, factory workers, homeless servants, and landless peasants. This corrodes sympathy, leaving the reader no choice but to read on, to be glad this novel was written, and to regret the need for it to be written. — Patricia McManus in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Rosa Burger grew up in a home under constant surveillance by the South African government. Her parents were detained for their political beliefs; her father died in prison, and her mother, whose health suffered from her time in jail, eventually dies. Rosa, a white South African in her early twenties, is left the only surviving member of her family. Yet even after her parents' deaths, the history of their anti-apartheid beliefs and practices have a daily impact on her life: it seems everyone has expectations of her and the government is still watching. A quiet, private person, Rosa constantly searches her memories to find herself, to grasp this heritage that weighs her down. Over a period of several years Rosa comes to understand the impact of the South African political climate on her and how she became who she is. Take time to read this novel; the political realities it describes are complicated. The narrative style varies from straightforward storytelling to Rosa's most personal thoughts. In Burger's Daughter, Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer takes a situation most read about in newspapers and makes it real, creating a memorable story of coming to terms with circumstances over which we have little control, yet which directly affect our lives. — Holly Smith in 500 Great Books by Women
Thanks so much for your donation Vasha!
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Journal Entry 3 by Vasha at Collegetown Bagels, 203 North Aurora St. in Ithaca, New York USA on Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Released 9 yrs ago (3/23/2016 UTC) at Collegetown Bagels, 203 North Aurora St. in Ithaca, New York USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
On the swap shelf.
