Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate And Activist, Dies At Age 90

Nadine Gordimer, Nobel laureate and South African activist, died on Monday at age 90, reports the Guardian.

Born on Nov. 20, 1923, in apartheid South Africa, Gordimer began writing and became an activist at an early age, according to the New York Times. Several of Gordimer’s books -- which handled themes related to the stress of living in a racially segregated system -- were banned by the apartheid regime, but Gordimer and her literature gained prominence in the anti-apartheid movement.

Gordimer first novel, "The Lying Days," was published in 1953 and tackles South African racial division. This theme continued through most of Gordimer’s published works -- including 1963's "Occasion for Loving," which tackles interracial relationships, something that was criminalized in South Africa at the time. Gordimer went on to win the Booker Prize in 1974 for her novel "The Conservationist," which the Novel Prize website calls “a novel of ironies… [that] evokes the sterility of the white community.”

Gordimer's literary accomplishments were recognized in 1991 with the Nobel Prize for Literature, which, according to the Nobel Prize website, was awarded because her “magnificent epic writing has -- in the words of Alfred Nobel -- been of very great benefit to humanity.”

Gordimer is survived by her two children.