Rena Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses the representative characteristics of Gordimer's writing that are apparent in "The Train from Rhodesia."

Nadine Gordimer has been called South Africa's "First Lady of Letters," and she is perhaps that country's most distinguished living fiction writer. The author of many volumes of collected short stories and novels, in addition to numerous lectures, essays, and other works of nonfiction, Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. This international recognition of Gordimer's work not only confirmed her reputation as an artist, but it also stressed the importance of writing about the effects of apartheid on the people of South Africa, The length of Gordimer's career—she published her first story when she was thirteen, her first book at twenty-six...