“And then took up her way, breath scrolling out, a signature before her.” The last sentence of Nadine Gordimer’s None to Accompany Me (1994), my favourite of all her novels, still takes my breath away. It is a “biting ebony-blue” winter night when Vera Stark, the narrative’s protagonist, steps into the garden of her new home. Everything is “stripped” outside, bare and clear.

The night Nadine Gordimer died I dreamt of wanting to visit my grandmother. I was walking up the staircase to her flat when I realised that I could no longer see her because she had been dead for several years. I woke up unsettled. The dream was so vivid that it scared me on the morning of the day when my husband André was to undergo surgery. It also made me think about all the precious people in my life.

Continue reading: A tribute to Nadine Gordimer – LitNet