Author: Etienne

“Poison Karoo” is a chapter from Etienne van Heerden’s novel about a yo-yo champion, to be published in March 2013 by Tafelberg Publishers.

The English translation of Gifkaroo is by Isobel Dixon, whose poems about the Karoo are included in her collections The Tempest Prognosticator (2011), A Fold in the Map (2007) and Weather Eye (2001), which was awarded the Olive Schreiner Prize in 2004. She grew up in Graaff-Reinet.

Poison Karoo is a work of fiction, written as if commercial hydraulic fracking has already begun in the Karoo.

• Elbie Adendorff: ’n Klein lewe allesbehalwe klein

(’n Klein lewe was completed under the supervision of Etienne van Heerden as part of UCT’s Creative Writing programme).

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Entertainer David Kramer was seen in the LitNet television ad – with Peter-Dirk Uys, André P. Brink, Etienne van Heerden and others.

With sculptor Frans Boekkooi and ‘Featherman’, Boekkooi’s depiction of the Angel in Etienne van Heerden’s novel The Long Silence of Mario Salviati. At the 2012 Karoo Writers Festival, Cradock.

The LitNet team at the Karoo Writers Festival 2012 presented the LitNet Schools Indaba and the panel ‘Cultural Crossover: Is it happening?’ In the picture: Etienne van Heerden, Bibi Slippers (LitNet), Russel Kaschula (Director of the School of Languages, University of Rhodes, and author), EKM Dido (the first black woman to publish an Afrikaans novel) and (seated) Peter Mtuze, author and former Head of African Languages at Rhodes University.

The Karoo launch of Etienne van Heerden’s short story collection Haai Karoo will take place at the Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival in Cradock on Friday, 10 August at 19h00, Victoria Manor, Mark Street.

Author Etienne van Heerden, London literary agent and poet Isobel Dixon (Weather Eye, The Tempest Prognosticator) and photographer Obie Oberholzer are working together on a publication to protest fracking in the Karoo. Van Heerden donated the original Afrikaans story, Gifkaroo (a chapter from a forthcoming novel), Dixon translated it for free (Poison Karoo), and Oberholzer contributed a photograph. Gifkaroo / Poison Karoo will be the first publication of Houtstraat Uitgewers, a niche publishing house in Cape Town. A limited, signed print run of only 100 copies will be presented to key players in the petroleum industry and other parties. The book will not be for sale.

The University of the Free State presented Etienne van Heerden with a honorary Doctor Litterarum, or DLitt, at its winter graduation ceremony on 15 June 2012. Here he is with the Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, Jonathan Jansen.

At the UFS Graduation ceremony in June 2012 in Bloemfontein – with Prof Hennie van Coller (left) and Judge Ian van der Merwe, Chairperson of the UFS Council.

• Read the acceptance speech at the Chancellor’s Dinner, UFS, here