Cuban intellectuals are paying homage to 1991 Nobel Literature Prize winner, late South African writer, Nadine Gordimer, at the headquarters of the Cuban Writers and Artists Association –UNEAC- on Tuesday .

UNEAC President, poet and ethnologist Miguel Barnet, South Africa’s ambassador to Cuba,  Naphtal Manana, and Cuban interpreter and translator, Teté Ortega, who has translated works by  Gordimer, are the keynote speakers. An interview with the South African writer by her Cuban counterpart and National Literature Prize winner, Nancy Morejón, will also be screened as part of the tribute.

Nadine Gordimer was born on November 20, 1923, in Springs, a mining area near Johannesburg, in the South African province of Gauteng. She published her first book Face to Face in 1949 and her first novel The Lying Days in 1953. South Africa’s social problems, alienated human behavior and racial segregation were important issues dealt with by Gordimer in her works. She was known as “South Africa’s literary voice against apartheid.”

Nadine Gordimer, who also defended the rights of the Cuban people, received the Nobel Literature Prize, and honorary doctorates and distinctions in prestigious universities, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, Leuven in Belgium, Ciudad del Cabo and Witwatersrand in South Africa, and others.