Occasion for Loving is a 1963 novel by Nobel prize-winning South African author Nadine Gordimer. It was her third published novel, and sixth published book. The novel focuses on a forbidden romantic relationship during apartheid between a woman in the wealthy white elite in South Africa and an African artist. Irving Malon, in The Kenyon Review, described this conflict as one of the central themes: "Love and politics — private feelings and public restrictions — clash and break Miss Gordimer's characters". A Nobel Prize essay described the novel as teaching that "apartheid cannot be reformed by pious words."