SOURCE: An introduction to Selected Stories, 1975. Reprint by The Viking Press, 1976, pp. 9-14.

In the following essay, Gordimer outlines her philosophy of short story writing.

After I had selected and arranged these stories, the present publisher asked me to provide some kind of introduction to them. If they were now making their first appearance I might have recoiled from this invitation, but they have all been printed and some reprinted, and have therefore been through a period of probation. Whatever I may say about them now cannot alter what has been said by others, and can hardly increase or lessen the likelihood of their being read—that must depend on the stories themselves.

The words are William Plomer's, but the attitude comes so close to my own that I do not hesitate to fly his declaration at the masthead of this book. William Plomer not only wrote some...