Abstract: | This article examines Nadine Gordimer's novels that have appeared after the end of apartheid in South Africa: 'None to Accompany Me' (1994), 'The House Gun' (1998) and 'The Pickup' (2001). In considering the continuing relevance of Gordimer's work, the purpose is to foreground features of her writing that were usually not emphasized when she was seen as the 'conscience of the anti-apartheid struggle': her liberation from excessive social responsibility, the shift from large historical events to the reconstitution of the civil imaginary, and engagements with the private life as independent of and not inextricably interwoven with the public domain. The article looks beyond the constraints of the political context to 'post-ideological' possibilities. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |