During the Etienne van Heerden Veldsoirée (Cradock, 22 to 24 September 2023), writers can improve their writing skills and meet writers like Jan van Tonder, Marita van der Vyver, Clinton du Plessis, PP Fourie, Bettina Wyngaard, Eben Venter, Bernard Odendaal, Hans du Plessis, RR Ryger, Mphuthumi Ntahbheni, Anschen Troskie, Sihle Khumalo and Etienne van Heerden.
A writing workshop in collaboration with the ATKV will be presented by Hans du Plessis and Bernard Odendaal.
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Imke van Heerden se debuutdigbundel, Silwerwit in die soontoe (Naledi, 2023), is ’n merkwaardige voorbeeld van hoe mens en masjien saam kan skep in die wêreld van poësie. Die versameling wys die samewerkingspogings van AfriKI, ’n Afrikaanse Kunsmatige Intelligensie-kletsbot, en die digter self. Terwyl die koms van OpenAI se ChatGPT aandag gevestig het op die moontlikhede van masjienondersteunde kreatiwiteit, het AfriKI sy debuut voor ChatGPT gemaak, ’n KI-kletsbot opgelei om Afrikaans te praat. Dit is gedoen deur die bestudering van ’n enkele teks, naamlik Etienne van Heerden se roman Die biblioteek aan die einde van die wêreld (2019).1
Continue reading “‘Silwerwit in die soontoe’: review on LitNet”
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Telkens wanneer ’n nuwe tegnologie sy opwagting maak, is die mensdom se reaksie soortgelyk: sommige kommentators is só beïndruk daarmee dat uitsprake gemaak word wat die rol van daardie tegnologie in die wêreld totaal oorskat en daar word ekstrapolasies gedoen wat geheel en al onrealisties is. Die eerste ruimtereise het byvoorbeeld die verwagting geskep dat ons teen 1999 die maan sou koloniseer. Ander kommentators weer, is behoudende puriste wat die bestaande tradisie probeer beskerm teen sulke nuwe onhebbelikhede. Dink maar aan die musiekbedryf en die koms van die grammofoon. Om na jou gunsteling opera op ’n draagbare toestel te luister? Nee wat, dit sal nie deug nie. En dink aan die koms van sintetiese musiekinstrumente in die vroeg 1970’s – kunstenaars soos Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze en Kraftwerk het groot debatte veroorsaak: aan die een kant wou entoesiaste dit hê dat hierdie vorm van musiekinstrument die toekoms in die geheel sou oorheers; terwyl ander dit as kitsch, kortstondig en ’n kortpad vir die talentloses beskryf het. As ons terugskouend na enige van hierdie verskynsels sou kyk, besef ons dat die waarheid altyd iewers in die grys gebied tussen hierdie twee uiterstes lê; en dat die tegnologiese baanbrekers op enige terrein as hoogs eksperimenteel beskou behoort te word totdat die tegnologie volwassenheid bereik het.
Continue reading “‘Silwerwit in die soontoe’: review on Versindaba”
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If an author writes with empathy, precision and authenticity about experiences foreign to their own, they’re a good writer and not a cultural appropriator.
The writer, Etienne Van Heerden, has admirable sweeping narrative powers to join events and cliffhangers into tight, jaw-dropping moments. He often grasps ideas by the nettle and delivers them in beautifully cut, clinical prose that produces intense emotions.
His new novel, translated from Afrikaans as A Library to Flee (original: Die Biblioteek aan die Einde van die Wêreld), is a collage of opinions about South Africa’s socio-political realities. At first, like most long reads, it feels disjointed and confusing—an inconsequential recording of semi-isolated occurrences and reportage culled from media outlets. But if you persevere, it gradually resembles the best of Truman Capote’s writing, with acute observational powers, brilliant characterization, and narrative prose.
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‘A Library to Flee’ is difficult to navigate at the beginning, but is worth staying with, writes Sanet Oberholzer, as the reward is a novel of ideas as well as a brilliant historical fiction tale
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David Attwell, emeritus professor, University of York, and co-editor of The Cambridge History of South African Literature, writes on Facebook:
Etienne van Heerden’s new novel, A Library to Flee (translated from the Afrikaans Die biblioteek aan die einde van die wêreld, literally ‘The Library at the End of the World’) is a huge, inventive, fascinating, funny, troubling, and highly courageous book. It inserts a story about global surveillance capitalism into South Africa’s atavistic racial politics. Strongly recommended.
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It is almost impossible to categorise Etienne van Heerden’s latest novel. It is immensely long – 630 trade paperback-sized pages excluding a glossary and author’s acknowledgments – and is by turns a political satire, a dystopian horror and a morality tale.
The novel, set at the time of the Rhodes and Fees Must Fall protests on campuses, specifically the University of Cape Town, is Dickensian in its scope, with a huge cast of characters. The main two are Thuli Khumalo, a child of the exile years and a leading Fallist, and Ian Brand, a social media lawyer descended from a long line of proud and reactionary Afrikaners, though he feels he has repudiated the past. That is, until a thoughtless and irritable tweet sends him into a maelstrom of hate, trolling and chaos.
Continue reading “‘Van Heerden’s writing is never boring’: TimesLIVE review of ‘A Library to Flee’”
The first AI poetry collection in Afrikaans, Silwerwit in die soontoe (transl. Silverwhite in the Distance), trained on A Library to Flee, has been included in the lemma for electronic literature in the Afrikaans literary terminology encyclopedia, Literêre terme en teorieë (transl. Literary terms and theories):
