The Writer as ‘Ragpicker’: The Auratic Power of the Mundane in Nadine Gordimer's Recent Fiction

Abstract

Recent intellectual debates in the humanities have shown a renewed interest in things spiritual. Also known as ‘subjective-life revolution’ and ‘postmodern holism’, the turn to the spiritual is, paradoxically, post-religious. It is best understood as ‘secular spirituality’: a sense of the sacred without allegiance to religious doctrines or institutions. I shall pursue this line of analysis in one of Nadine Gordimer's post-1990 novels, The House Gun. In suggesting a new way of reading the work of this Nobel Laureate, often dubbed the “conscience against apartheid”, I seek ‘spirituality in unexpected places’, including the sphere of sexuality. How might we respond to J M Coetzee's observation that there has been a “spiritual turn in her thought” (2007)?

Keywords:

• secular spirituality
• Gordimer
• spiritual turn
• post-1990 fiction
• The House Gun