WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN? by Nadine Gordimer...

WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN? by Nadine Gordimer (Penguin: $11; 231 pp.). Instead of writing heavy-handed manifestoes about the problems of South Africa, Gordimer describes human interactions in ways that underscore the cruelties of a society distorted by the monstrous policy of apartheid. Her cool, uncluttered prose evokes the nuances of a mood, the sensations produced by a special time of a day, the slightly duplicitous pleasures of nostalgia. “Inkalumu’s Place” blends longing and distaste as a woman recalls the soiled splendor of the local “big man.” The stories in this collection span 1950-1972, and offer American readers a sampler of the Nobel laureate’s deceptively understated fiction.