Burger's Daughter - Publication and Banning

Publication and Banning

Gordimer knew that Burger's Daughter would be banned in South Africa, and a decision was made to publish it in London. A month after publication the book was banned, prohibiting its import and sale in South Africa. The reasons given by the Publications Control Board included "propagating Communist opinions", "creating a psychosis of revolution and rebellion", and "making several unbridled attacks against the authority entrusted with the maintenance of law and order and the safety of the state". After unsuccessfully challenging the banning order, Gordimer surreptitiously published a pamphlet in Johannesburg in 1980 entitled What Happened to Burger's Daughter or How South African Censorship Works. An Afrikaans lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, who had been publishing anti-apartheid literature, offered to help with the printing of the booklet, and it was sent to bookshops to be given to customers free to avoid attracting the attention of the authorities.

After six months the South African government lifted their ban on Burger's Daughter, which Gordimer attributed to her international stature and the "serious attention" the book had received abroad. A number of prominent authors and literary organisations had protested the banning, including Heinrich Böll, Paul Theroux, John Fowles, The Association of American Publishers and PEN. She did, however, voice her objection to the unbanning because she felt the government was trying placate her with "special treatment", and said that the same thing would not have happened had she been black. But she did describe the action as "something of a precedent for other writers" because in the book she had published a pamphlet written and distributed by students in the 1976 Soweto uprising, which the authorities had banned. She said that similar "transgressions" in the future would be difficult for the censors clamp down on.

While Burger's Daughter was still banned, a copy was smuggled into Nelson Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, and later a message was sent out saying that he had "thought well of it". Gordimer said, "That means more to me than any other opinion it could have gained." Mandela also requested a meeting with her, and she applied several times to visit him on the Island, but was declined each time. She was, however, at the gate waiting for him when he was released in 1990. In 2007 Gordimer sent Mandela an inscribed copy of Burger's Daughter to "replace the 'imprisoned' copy", and in it she thanked him for his opinion of the book, and for "untiringly leading the struggle".