SOURCE: "A Sudden Shaft of Light," in The Saturday Review, New York, Vol. XLVIII, No. 19, May 8, 1965, p. 33.

Brown is a South African critic. In the following review, he praises the maturity and emotional intensity of the stories of Not for Publication.

This superb collection of stories [Not for Publication, and Other Stories] most decidedly is for publication. And I believe it represents a giant step forward for Nadine Gordimer.

What has always puzzled me profoundly about her writing in the past was why so small a proportion of her deftly executed, perspicacious stories made a really deep impression upon me. Hers was clearly more than an exceedingly skillful technique allied to a perceptive eye and an acute ear. One was constantly aware that a sensitive and intelligent mind was at work behind the stories that generally depicted—with rare accuracy—people caught in varied postures of human frailty...