Laruen Alwan

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Litstack Recs | Changing My Mind & Time Salvager

Published on : 6 November, 20206 November, 2020 Published by : Lauren Alwan

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith This collection of essays came about by accident, Zadie Smith tells us in the foreword, but the voice and curiosity behind it make this read seamless and satisfying. And with Smith, whether the subject is Nabokov or Forster, her person is an […]

On this day, November 20, in 1923, Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa. A political activist as well as writer, she was the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa; under that regime, her works such as Burger’s Daughter and July’s People were banned. Active in the anti-apartheid movement, she joined the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned, and gave Nelson Mandela advice on his famous 1964 defense speech at the trial which led to his life conviction. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes, and resisted censorship and state control of information. She
died in her sleep in 2014; she was 90.

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.

Litstack Recs | Changing My Mind & Time Salvager

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