Burger's Daughter
by Nadine Gordimer
published
November 20th 1980
by Penguin (Non-Classics)
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binding
Paperback, 361 pages
setting
South Africa
isbn
0140055932
(isbn13: 9780140055931)
description
Rosa Burger grew up in a home under constant surveillance by the South African government. Her parents were detained for their political beliefs; her ...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 291)
Read in March, 2007
recommends it for:
Aspiring activists
At what point do you choose what you are already born into? Gordimer explores this puzzle in her densely lyrical novel, spinning out a fictional life for a fictional daughter of a fictional white anti-apartheid activist in 1970s South Africa. The daughter's ambivalence about having been born into a family committed to the cause, her clear-eyed assessments of the tensions and fault lines within the movement, and her memories of what happens to a family constantly struggling against society are wh...more
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Read in January, 2000
This is the story of Rosa Burger, a young woman raised by political dissidents in apartheid South Africa, who now must decide what role she will play in her country. Gordimer is the grand dame of modern, white South African writers, and this is my favorite of her novels. The narrative style could be a bit disconcerting for some because it varies from straightforward to stream of consciousness, but the personal dilemma at the core of it - choosing between a private life or one that is political i...more
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Read in April, 2008
this book is incredibly dense, but beautifully written, once you adapt to gordimer's style, which she forces you to do with her brutal talent.
it's a good read for someone constantly struggling with the question of what to do with social injustice, especially when it is legally sanctioned--of how to reconcile the personal and political, or how to admit all of your contradictory parts.
it's a good read for someone constantly struggling with the question of what to do with social injustice, especially when it is legally sanctioned--of how to reconcile the personal and political, or how to admit all of your contradictory parts.
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Read in October, 2007
Ooh. Ouch. Writing in fragments. I get it. Important South African Literature. I get it. Nobel Prize winning author. I get it.
Writing a book in which nothing happens. I don't get it.
There's much to the writing here, but it's just not worth the effort.
An essay disguised as a novel. Boooo!
Writing a book in which nothing happens. I don't get it.
There's much to the writing here, but it's just not worth the effort.
An essay disguised as a novel. Boooo!
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I read this many, many, years ago, when it first came out and I haven't re-read it, but I remember being struck by the intelligence of the writer and I have continued to read her work...
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Read in January, 2004
Gordimer writes well. Her dialog techniques are interesting, but once acclimating to them the story reads well. Gordimer's stories are eye-opening, uncomfortable, and important.
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I've been trying to read this for, oh, abuot 5 years now. Not an indication of how good it is, just a tough book to get through.
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Read in March, 2006
Every sentence manages to end in a way that completely makes you lose track of how it started. This one's a skimmer.
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Read in December, 2006
I have heard so many good things about Nadine Gordimer as an author, but I found this one kind of tedious reading.
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I read this book years ago and remember very little about it, except that I was not satisfied with the ending.
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Read in January, 1991
recommends it for:
South African lit. readers; resistance readers
Good novel about human relationships during Apartheid.
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This is the book of Gordimer's that I always recommend to my young friends. I think maybe Meggie read it and didn't like it? But I loved it and I read it way past my youth, but I think it's an absolutely inspirational book, because the young woman is so strong, yet so human.
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recommends it for:
anyone, douchebags and good people
Being an activist who believes in violent and non-violent revolution is kinda INTENSE!
Who knew.
Who knew.
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I love her honesty, human weakness, horniness and questioning of authority.
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Read in September, 2007
<3 <3 <3
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.65 (170 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.70 (163 ratings) number of reviews: 17
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quote
"I don't want to know more about her; don't want to know her weaknesses or calculate them. What I have is not for her; he gives me to understand she would not know what to do with it; it's not her fault. --One is married and there is nothing to be done.-- Yet he has said to me, I would marry you if I could, meaning: I want very much to marry you. I offended him a bit by not being moved. It's other things he's said that are the text I'm living by. I really do not know if I want any form of public statement, status, code; such as marriage. There's nothing more private and personal than the life of a mistress, is there? Outwardly, no one even knows we are responsible to each other....
'This is the creature that has never been'--he told me a line of poetry about that unicorn, translated from German. A mythical creature. Un paradis inventé. "
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