Abjater wat so lag

by Wilma Stockenström

Hierdie merkwaardige bekroonde roman het as verteller ’n eenkantvrou en oujongnooi wat (op ’n plattelandse dorp in die eerste deel van die twintigste eeu) terugkyk op haar lewe – as ’n versorgster in gegoede witmense se huise, eers as hulp met kinders en later vir oumense en sterwendes. Sy vertel van die insig in die dood wat sy só by die baie sterwendes gekry het. Dan raak sy ook uiteindelik sterwensbegeleidster vir Abjater, ’n man wie se goue lag sy in haar jongdae bewonder het, iemand wat vir haar soos ’n “uitverkorene” gelyk het.

So peins die verteller aan die einde van ’n lewe waarin sy, soos sy elders sê, “by die dood ingeboek” was: “Miskien het ek met die dood getrou, kom dit by my op ... maar nou raak ek sat vir hom. Hy bly my pal besoek. Hy bring net woeligheid.”

136 pages, Paperback

Published August 15, 2007

About the author

Wilma Johanna Stockenström is a South African writer, translator, and actor. She writes in the Afrikaans language, and along with Sheila Cussons, Elisabeth Eybers, Antjie Krog and Ina Rousseau, she is one of the leading female writers in the language.

She was born in Napier in the Overberg district. After finishing high school, she studied at Stellenbosch University, where she obtained a BA in Drama in 1952. She moved to Pretoria in 1954, and married the Estonian linguist Ants Kirsipuu. She has lived in Cape Town since 1993.

She is one of a handful of writers to have won the Hertzog prize in two different categories. She won it first for poetry in 1977 and then for fiction in 1991. Her 1981 novel Die kremetartekspedisie was translated into English by the Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee under the title The Expedition to the Baobab Tree. She has also been translated into Dutch, French, Hebrew, German, Italian and Swedish.