The work of novelist Nadine Gordimer, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999, may be removed from the curriculum in some schools in her native South Africa because some local officials deem her writing racist. The offending book, July's People, which officials described as "deeply racist, superior and patronising," tells the story of a white family that takes shelter in the home of their former servant, who is black, during a futuristic racial civil war. Gordimer, who also had several books banned under the apartheid regime of which she was a fierce opponent, took great offense that anyone could interpret the book as favoring racism.

The same group of provincial officials also called for the removal of works by black African authors such as Zimbabwe's Dambudzo Marachera and South Africa's Njabulo Ndebele, as well as several of Shakespeare's works: Anthony and Cleopatra and Othello because they're both racist, Julius Caesar because it elevates men and is thus sexist, Hamlet because it is "Eurocentric, not optimistic or uplifting," and King Lear because it "lacks the power to excite readers and is full of violence and despair."

[Ed.: The South African national government quickly rallied to Gordminer's defense, the provincial officials apologized, and the Sunday Independent reported that all of the teachers on the panel that issued the criticisms were white.]

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