Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer says the proudest day of her life was not when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, but when she testified at a 1986 treason trial on behalf of 22 South African anti-apartheid activists. Gordimer is no literary bystander. She joined the African National Congress well before it was legal and once hid its leaders in her home. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Gordimer was one of the first people he wanted to see.

Yet Gordimer's greatest contributions to the struggle in her native land have been carried...