Peter Abrahams (writer, 1919)

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Peter Abrahams 1955

Peter Henry Abrahams Deras (born March 19, 1919 in Vrededorp , Johannesburg , † January 18, 2017 in Rock Hall , Saint Andrew Parish , Jamaica ) was a South African journalist and writer .

Life

Abrahams was born in 1919 to the Ethiopian James Henry Abrahams Deras and the South African Angelina Du Plessis, who was of African and French descent. Abrahams was therefore considered Colored . His father died when he was a child and he grew up in great poverty. He had to work to keep his family before he was ten; Among other things, he sold firewood, cleaned hotel rooms and delivered packages. He was given the opportunity to go to school late, but learned quickly and wrote his first story at the age of eleven.

Through a scholarship he was able to attend St. Peter's College in Johannesburg and then trained as a teacher at Grace Dieu Diocesan Training College near Pietersburg . During his college years he published texts and poems for the first time in the newspaper Bantu World . He graduated in 1938. He worked for a year as a teacher in Cape Town and briefly as a magazine editor in Durban . He was charged with treason and accepted a job as a stoker on a ship. After traveling for two years, he landed in England and settled down as a writer. His first collection of short stories, Dark Testament , was published in 1942, and his first novel, Song of the City, in 1945. The main theme of his works was life in South Africa under white rule. In 1956 he moved to Jamaica to write a book for the British Colonial Office ; he settled there permanently.

Abrahams was a member of the Society of Authors and PEN Club . He was married for the second time from 1948; he had three children with his second wife. On January 18, 2017, at the age of 97, he was found dead in his home; there were traces of a violent crime. On October 7, 2018, his housekeeper’s husband was sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter.

Others

The plot of the ballet play The Path of Thunder is based on Abraham's novel The Path of Thunder .

Works

  • Dark Testament , G. Allen 1942
  • Song of the City , Crisp 1945
  • Mine Boy , 1946; German: Black man in the white jungle , 1961, and Xuma , 1994
  • The Path of Thunder , 1948; German: Horsemen of the Night , 1957
  • Wild Conquest , 1950; German: Wilder Weg , 1952
    • Excerpt, translator Elisabeth Schnack : Bayete, in The most beautiful stories in the world. Vol. 2. Kurt Desch, Vienna 1956, pp. 610-679
  • Tell Freedom: Memories of Africa , 1954; German: Where the white shadows fall , 1956
  • A Wreath for Udomo , 1956
  • A Night of Their Own , 1965
  • This Island Now , 1966
  • The View from Coyaba , 1985
  • The Black Experience in the 20th Century: An Autobiography and Meditation , 2000

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Long-time journalist Peter Abrahams dies at 97 . The Jamaica Gleaner, January 18, 2017, accessed January 18, 2017.
  2. ↑ Man gets seven years for killing Peter Abrahams , Loop Jamaica, October 7, 2018, accessed June 9, 2020.

literature

  • Simon Gikandi: Encyclopedia of African Literature . Taylor & Francis, 2003, ISBN 978-1-134-58223-5 , pp. 5 (English, full text in the Google book search).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Abrahams, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abrahams Dears, Peter Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg
DATE OF DEATH 18th January 2017
Place of death Rock Hall (Jamaica) , Jamaica