Nadine Gordimer, South African author, dies at 90

The writer, who was one of the literary world's most powerful voices against apartheid - died at her home after a short illness, her family said.

She wrote more than 30 books, including the novels My Son's Story, Burger's Daughter and July's People.

She won the Booker Prize in 1974 for The Conservationist and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991.

'She cared most deeply'

The Nobel committee said at the time it was honouring Gordimer for her "magnificent epic writing" which had been "of very great benefit to humanity".

Writing from an early age, the author published her first story - Come Again Tomorrow - in a Johannesburg magazine at just 15.

Her works comprised both novels and short stories where the consequences of apartheid, exile and alienation were the major themes.

Gordimer's family said she "cared most deeply about South Africa, its culture, its people, and its ongoing struggle to realise its new democracy".

Committed to fighting apartheid, the author was a leading member of the African National Congress and fought for the release of Nelson Mandela. They went on to become firm friends.

A number of her books were banned by the South African government under the apartheid regime including 1966's The Late Bourgeois World and 1979's Burger's Daughter.

Her last novel, No Time Like the Present, published in 2012, follows veterans of the battle against apartheid as they deal with the issues facing modern South Africa.