Category: Latest

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

Wilna Adriaanse’s ’n Klein lewe, the manuscript of which was completed under the supervision
of Etienne van Heerden as part of UCT’s Creative Writing programme,
has just been published by Tafelberg Publishers.

In the office of Hennie van Coller, Head of Afrikaans, Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State. The skull used to sit on the desk of the great Sestiger novelist, Etienne (Stephen) Leroux. On the right is a painting of DF Malherbe, a novelist of an even earlier generation. Van Heerden was invited to talk about LitNet and its accredited node for peer-reviewed academic writing in the Humanities, Law and the Natural Sciences, LitNet Akademies.

A novel supervised by Etienne van Heerden in the MA Creative Writing programme at UCT wins the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for South African Writing in English.

• The University of Johannesburg Prize for South African Writing in English 2011

30 Nights in Amsterdam in Latvian, published by Jumava Publishers.

Haai Karoo (Tafelberg Publishers) is an Afrikaans collection of short stories set in the Karoo. It will be launched at the 2012 Schreiner Literary Festival in Cradock (for further info, contact Lisa Antrobus Ker at lisa@tuishuise.co.za). The stories were previously published in earlier Van Heerden volumes and one of the texts, “Die gas in Rondawel Wilhelmina” was at the time published by the Dutch Anti-Apartheid organisation Kairos. “Haai” means “bleak”, “barren” and “inhospitable”. Most of these stories were published in French, Hebrew, Dutch and other languages.

Staying as guest of the Dutch Foundation for Literature on the Spui in Amsterdam for the month of February 2012, Van Heerden researched and worked on a new novel.
[Netherlands: Amsterdam, 02.2012]

Masters Class in Literary Translation

Etienne van Heerden will offer a Masters Class in Literary Translation at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands and his Dutch translator, Martine Vosmaer, will also contribute.

Lecture: 30 Nights in Amsterdam

Writers Unlimited: The Series, The Hague, Netherlands
This lecture: 30 Nights in Amsterdam
Lecture, Central Library, The Hague – 24 February 2012, 20h30 to 22h00

Writers Unlimited (formerly “Winternachten”) offers a series of conversations with authors: “Writers Unlimited: The Series” and in the 4th event Etienne van Heerden will discuss his latest novel with Jeroen van Kan (VPRO radio programme De Avonden) en the chief editor of ZAM Magazine, Bart Luirink.

Click here for more information.

New inter-review

• De Standaard: Jiven op de ruines van de apartheid
  [Belgium: Antwerp, 06.01.2012]

“De verbeelding en de energie van Van Heerden lijken even onbeperkt als de eindeloze Karoovlakte.”
– Ludo Teeuwen

New reviews

• Athenaeum Boekhandel: De sluizen van herinnering [Netherlands: Amsterdam, 05.01.2012]

“Van Heerden schepte bovendien voor de gekte van Zan een idioom dat haar een personage maakt dat zijn weerga in de moderne literatuur bijna niet kent. De oplopende stadia van haar ‘vervoering’ worden gespiegeld in haar steeds extatischer taal. Spreekt Zan in normale doen al kleurrijk, als zij een aanval krijgt gaat het hele taalregister open. De leestekens vallen weg, de associaties en verwijzingen buitelen over elkaar heen – u las het hierboven al. Een pluim voor Karina van Santen en Martine Vosmaer, de vertalers die haar (en dus Van Heerden) hebben kunnen bijbenen, hoed af voor deze beste roman van 2011.”
– Mark-Edward Schaap

• www.iedereenleest.be: 30 Nachten in Amsterdam
  [Belgium: Antwerp, 06.01.2012] 

“Het jaar 2011 sloot ik heel waardig af met een verbijsterend knap boek van Etienne van Heerden (1954), 30 Nachten in Amsterdam.”
– André Oyen