A Guest of Honour (novel)

A Guest of Honour is a 1970 fictional novel by Nobel winning South African writer Nadine Gordimer. Published four years after her novel The Late Bourgeois World, the novel is a political novel that explores the role of revolutionary ideas in new African states.[1]

A Guest of Honour

First edition cover
Author	Nadine Gordimer
Country	South Africa
Language	English
Genre	Fiction
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	October 22, 1970
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	504
ISBN	9780670356546

Critical reception

The New York Times reviewer Thomas Fisk called the novel "a long, spacious, comprehensive work of fiction" which has "something Olympian, something magnificently confident [about how] this South African writer goes about her work."[1] Fisk's review focuses on the stylistic qualities of the novel, calling the characters "exceedingly human: complicated, erring, driven by fleshy appetites and by the loftiest resolves" and discussing the setting as a "landscape s tactile and so sensuous that it becomes a participant in everything that occurs".[1]

References

1. Lask, Thomas (1970-10-30). "'A Guest of Honor'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-11-04.

Further reading

• Fido, Elaine (1978-04-01). "A guest of honour: A feminine view of masculinity". World Literature Written in English. 17 (1): 30–37. doi:10.1080/17449857808588500. ISSN 0093-1705.
• Donge, Jan Kees van (1982-10-01). "Nadine Gordimer's "A Guest of Honour": A Failure to Understand Zambian Society". Journal of Southern African Studies. 9 (1): 74–92. doi:10.1080/03057078208708051. JSTOR 2636733.
• Ogede, Ode S. (2006-01-01). "The Liberal Tradition in South African Literature: Still a Curse? Nadine Gordimer's A Guest of Honour Revisited". International Fiction Review. 33 (1). ISSN 1911-186X.