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Nobel laureate Gordimer assaulted in Johannesburg

South Africa in general and Johannesburg in particular have been plagued by violent crime, a carryover of the Apartheid era and the social inequalities in the country and its capital. On Saturday, the crime reached the South African Nobel laureate for literature Nadine Gordimer, whose home was broken in to and whom herself was physically attacked.

Gordimer, 83, was robbed and locked in a store room along with her domestic worker by thieves. She did not sustain serious injuries, police said, but was assaulted after refusing to give the thieves her wedding ring. She did, however, hand over cash and jewelry to the three unarmed men who broke into her home. The burglars locked her up after the domestic worker pressed a panic button in the house.

Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She has recorded and expressed, in her novels, the inhumanity of Apartheid. After the burglary, she expressed her sympathy to the burglars, and not her anger. She said the country supply the arms that pushed and robber her with a job, so that events like this don`t recur as often as they do.