Praising a Global Identity in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup

Abstract

The article attempts to explore, in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup, the collision between different identities through the love between Julie, a white South African woman and her husband Abdu also called Ibrahim, a muslim Arab. With regard to postcolonial theories which envisage flattening the post-colonial legacy, Gordimer promotes a global identity beyond the tribe, by taking into account issues of globalization, cross cultural and transracial identities that have changed the identical structure of the New World. Moreover she demonstrates that the force of identity is pervasive enough to transcend binaries and move freely in and out of spaces. The article supports that the beauty of a culture lies on the changing and the flexible nature of identity rather than a fix one.