Nobel Prize-winning writer Nadine Gordimer dies.

By Ndundu Sithole

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) South African Nobel Prize-winning writer Nadine Gordimer died peacefully at the age of 90 on Sunday night at her home in Johannesburg, her family said Monday.

Gordimer, an uncompromising human rights defender who became one of the most powerful voices against the injustice of apartheid, died in the presence of her children, Hugo and Oriane, according to a family statement.

"She cared deeply about South Africa, its culture, its people, and its ongoing struggle to establish its new democracy," the statement said.

Considered by many to be South Africa's leading writer, Nadine was known as a rigorous author whose novels and short stories reflected the drama of human life and emotions in a society sacrificed by decades of white minority rule.

Many of his stories focus on themes such as love, hate, and friendship under the pressures of the apartheid system that ended in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president.

A member of Mandela's party, the African National Congress (ANC), which was banned under apartheid, Nadine used writing to fight for decades against the inequality of white rule, becoming disliked by segments of the establishment.

Some of his works, such as "A World of Strangers" and "Burger's Daughter," were banned by the apartheid authorities.

Nadine wrote not only against the apartheid regime, but also about human hypocrisy and deceit, wherever she found it.

"I can't simply condemn apartheid when there is human injustice everywhere," she told Reuters shortly before winning the Nobel Prize.

In recent years, she had become an activist for the HIV/AIDS movement, campaigning for support and resources through the Treatment Action Campaign, a group that pressures the South African government to provide free medication to HIV-positive individuals.

She also did not refrain from criticizing the ANC, led by President Jacob Zuma, by expressing her opposition to a law that limits the publication of information deemed sensitive by the authorities.

REPUTATION FOR BEING RADICAL

The daughter of a Lithuanian Jewish watchmaker, Nadine began writing at the age of 9.

His lonely childhood triggered an intense study of the ordinary people around him, especially the customers of his father's jewelry store and the Black migrant workers in his hometown of East Rand, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

Her rebelliousness and liberal leanings earned her a reputation as a radical. Government censors banned three of her works in the 1960s and 1970s, despite her growing prestige abroad and her acceptance as one of the most important authors in the English language.

Despite being a member of the international elite, Gordimer maintained a passionate interest in those struggling on the fringes of South Africa's literary world.

"It humiliates me to see someone sitting in the corner of a shack they share with 10 other people, trying to write in the most impossible conditions," she said.

Despite her hatred of apartheid, Gordimer remained proud of her South African origins and said she only once considered emigrating – to neighboring Zambia. "Then I discovered the truth: that in Zambia I was considered by my black friends as a European, a foreigner," she said. "It's only here that I can be who I am: a white African."