South African · 1923–2014
Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 for writing that "has been of very great benefit to humanity." The South African author spent her career documenting apartheid's moral damage—to perpetrators and victims alike. "The Conservationist" (1974) shared the Booker Prize; "July's People" (1981) imagines the end of white rule. Gordimer was active in the African National Congress when it was banned. She died in 2014, having written across South Africa's transformation.