Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer has rejected attempts by South African officials, including education minister Kadar Asmal, to smooth over a controversy in which one of her books was deemed unsuitable for the school system.

Evaluators in South Africa's most populous region said Gordimer's 1980 novel, July's People, was "deeply racist, superior, patronising" and no longer relevant to South Africa.

"The criteria of the report on July's People and its tone of righteousness echo, amazingly, exactly the language and attitudes of the old apartheid censorship board," Gordimer said.