Laurens van der Post

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Laurens Jan van der Post Memorial Center in Philippolis , South Africa

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post CBE (born December 13, 1906 in Philippolis , South Africa , † December 16, 1996 in London ) was a South African-British writer who campaigned against apartheid .

Life

1906 to 1939

Laurens van der Post was born in the small town of Philippolis in the British Orange River colony in what is now South Africa , which emerged from the Orange Free State after the Second Boer War . His father, Christiaan Willem Hendrik van der Post (1856–1914), of Dutch descent, arrived in South Africa as a three-year-old boy and in 1889 married Lammie, of German descent. The family had a total of 15 children; Laurens was the thirteenth, fifth son. Christiaan van der Post was a lawyer and politician, he fought against the British in the Second Boer War. After the war he went with his family to Stellenbosch in the Cape Province . They returned to Philippolis in 1906, where Laurens was born.

Laurens van der Post spent his early childhood on the family farm. He enjoyed reading books from his father's extensive library, which included Homer and Shakespeare . His father died in August 1914. From 1918 to 1924 van der Post went to school at Gray College in Bloemfontein . There it was a great shock for him to be “brought up to something that destroyed the sense of everyday humanity that I shared with black people”.

In 1925 he took up his first job as an in-training reporter at The Natal Advertiser in Durban . His reports included his own achievements as a player on the Durbans and Natals hockey teams. In 1926 he and two other rebellious authors, Roy Campbell and William Plomer , published a satirical magazine called Voorslag (German about: "whip"), which campaigned for more racial entanglement in South Africa; this lasted three editions before being forced to close because of her radical views. Later that year, he and Plomer rode a Japanese cargo ship, the Canada Maru , to Tokyo and back, an experience that led both authors to books in later life.

In 1927 van der Post met Marjorie Edith Wendt († 1995), the daughter of the founder and conductor of the Cape Town Orchestra. They traveled to England together and were married on March 8, 1928 in Bridport, Dorset . A son named Jan Laurens (later known as John) was born soon after on December 26th. In 1929 Laurens van der Post returned to South Africa to work for the Cape Times , a newspaper in Cape Town . “During this time Marjorie and I lived in the worst poverty there is,” he wrote in his diary. He began to join the rebellious artists and educated who opposed Prime Minister James Hertzog and white South African politics. He wrote the article South Africa in the Melting Pot , in which he clarified his views on the South African race issue. He said, "The white South Africans to this day have never consciously believed that the natives should ever equal them." But he predicted, "The process of equality and intermingling must keep accelerating ... the future civilization of South Africa is, I believe, neither black nor white, but brown. "

He returned to England in 1931 and made friends with members of the Bloomsbury Group such as John Maynard Keynes , EM Forster and Virginia Woolf .

1939 to 1996

During the Second World War , van der Post served the British Army in Abyssinia , North Africa and Indonesia . In Indonesia he was captured by the Japanese army for four years . He then took part in several expeditions in areas of Africa still unknown to the whites at the time, including to the Kalahari to explore the culture of the San .

1980 he was raised as a Knight Bachelor ("Sir") in the British nobility . In 1982, at the age of 75, at the request of Prince Charles, he became Prince William's godfather . In 1996 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire . In the same year Laurens van der Post died in London.

Film adaptations

Web links

Commons : Laurens van der Post  - collection of images, videos and audio files

German

English

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait at gophilippolis.com ( Memento from August 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on April 16, 2014
  2. ↑ "being educated into something which destroyed the sense of common humanity I shared with the black people"
  3. ↑ “For the time being Marjorie and I are living in the most dire poverty that exists,” “The white South African has never consciously believed that the native should ever become his equal.” “The process of leveling up and inter-mixture must accelerate continually ... the future civilization of South Africa is, I believe, neither black or white but brown. "
personal data
SURNAME Post, Laurens van der
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Post, Laurens Jan van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African-British writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Philippolis , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1996
Place of death London