2013
| | |
Herman Charles Bosman was born on the 3rd of February 1905 at Kuils River to an Afrikaner family. He was raised bilingually. He attended the Johannesburg Collage of Education, now known as the University of the Witwatersrand, here he submitted a few pieces to the student literary competitions (Anderson, 36-45).
Herman Charles Bosman, one of South Africa’s most popular writers, became famous for capturing the rhythms of backveld Afrikaans speech, even though he wrote mostly in English. One always gets the feeling of the Afrikaans undertone in all his writings, might it be his short stories, novels or poems (Anderson, 36-45).
After graduation he accepted a teaching job in the Groot Marico. This area and its people inspired him and provided the background information to write his best known short stories about Oom Schalk Lourens, all the stories in this series featured the elderly character Oom Schalk. He also wrote novels and poems, most of his novels consisted of a very dark satirical element concerning the apartheid era in South Africa (Anderson, 36-45). I especially liked these stories as I can somehow relate to them as I absolutely love the farm life even though I didn’t grow up on a farm, family of mine has a farm in the Northern Cape where I spend most of my holidays.
Most of Herman’s books play off in a small town of the Northern Transvaal. His writing style stays fairly constant throughout most of his short stories and then another that although it is similar it differs in the degree of seriousness in his novels. But none the less most of his writings were done with a tongue in cheek but it had a deeper meaning to it especially the short stories which to a certain extent teases the Afrikaner way of life.
Herman Charles Bosman’s first novel; Jacaranda in the night, was followed by the second; Willemsdorp. This could be considered a follow up on Jacaranda in the night. His novels are