The Conservationist

Nadine Gordimer paints a complex portrait of dangerously deluded and wilfully ignorant privilege, set in South Africa during the time of apartheid.

“Gordimer is a great writer… It is Turgenev that she most brings to mind."  -  New York Review of Books

Mehring is rich, with all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer. But his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroys his farm. The upheaval in his world increasingly resembles that in the country as a whole, and it becomes clear that only a seismic shift in ideas and concrete action can avert annihilation

“Gordimer has written what must be considered her masterpiece. The beauty and largeness of this land she loves is drawn with a breadth and scope that is breathtaking.”  —  St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Nadine Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Her many novels include The Conservationist, joint winner of the Booker Prize, Get a Life, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, My Son’s Story and The Pickup. Her final novel was No Time Like the Present, published in 2012. Her collections of short stories include The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Something Out There, Jump, Loot and Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black.