I haven’t had an African writer in the A to Z series, so I was especially delighted when I discovered Yvette Christianse, a South African born novelist, poet and scholar. She was born and raised primarily in South Africa, but she and her family moved to Swaziland in Africa and then Australia when she was in her teens to escape apartheid in their home country. My heart swelled when I read in one of her biographies that she has been a visiting writer at the University of Cape Town thus coming full circle and returning to South Africa, which thankfully is no longer under apartheid.
She is the author of two books of poetry Castaway and Imprendehora Her novel Unconfessed was published in three countries (the US, South Africa and Holland) by three different publishers. She also had a volume of poetry published only in Australia: Faultlines: Three Poets
I found an interview of Yvette which made me want to read her work even more. This snippet shares why she wrote her novel, Unconfessed , which is based on a true story:
“That single word was the Dutch hertseer, which the Colonial Office translated directly into "heartsore." Not "grieving" or "griefstruck", but this forceful, corporeal, yet strangely nonexistent word, "heartsore." It is the one real word that she utters when confronted with her crime. When the prosecutor outlines and demands that she confirm her act, she utters one phrase, "Yes, because I was heartsore." Frustrated, he asks again, "Is it true, that on the night of …" The record shows just one word. It is that word, again, and only that word. The prosecutor is clearly silent, and silenced because the court transcript intervenes with a summary of what followed: "the witness was overcome."
Now I feel as if I don’t have a choice: I need to read Unconfessed. I need to know the work of Yvette Christianse.
This blog post is an entry in the A to Z Challenge. Each day in April (except Sundays) I will be featuring a woman in literary history. If you click on the logo below, you will be introduced to the writing of more than a thousand bloggers writing on a wide variety of topics in April, all from A to Z!
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again April 19, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.
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