Beyond Critical Realism and ‘Situated Postcolonial Modernism’: Nadine Gordimer’s Readings of Franz Kafka

Abstract

This article examines the influence of Franz Kafka on Nadine Gordimer’s conception of writing and the writer's role in society. I argue that Kafka had a significant role in shaping Gordimer’s understanding of such issues as freedom and detachment, which remained crucial to her throughout her writing career. Using the notion of ‘interruption,’ taken from the works of Jed Esty, Colleen Lye, and Rita Barnard, I claim that Gordimer referred to Kafka in order to ‘interrupt’ – or diverge from – the conception of writing as defined by Georg Lukács and Ernst Fischer, doing so to reach beyond the principles of critical realism. My main argument is that it is important to consider the modernism of Gordimer’s works not only in terms of her historical and geographical embeddedness but also in light of her desire to reach beyond the socio-political context in which she wrote her works.