Three more books published as a result of the program in Creative writing

Course in Creative writing delivers three more books

On Wednesday, 3 August, the department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French hosted a book launch for three books written by former students of the MA programme for creative writing. The authors were Franco Colin, Adele Vorster and Pieter Stoffberg.

The welcoming speech was done by Prof Angelique van Niekerk (HoD) and afterwards the two promotors, Prof Henning Pieterse and Dr Francois Smith, interviewed the authors.

Despite the fact that the books are from three separate genres, namely poetry, fiction and memoire, vulnerability and power are the central themes in each of them.

Dr Franco Colin is a psychiatrist from Pretoria and his volume of poetry, Skeletaal (published by Imprimatuur) was well received by a number of  critics.  Colins says that he writes about the silent vulnerable people in society.  According to Colin poetry is condensed emotion. He prefers intellectual poetry and people reading his work will find it challenging and rewarding.

Pieter Stoffberg, a lawyer from Ermelo, wrote a novel Tenk (published by Penguin-Random House).  He describes the book as “faction”, or fiction based on interviews, diaries and conversations with people who in real life participated in the war in Angola in 1987.  He portrays the complexities of war but also emphasises human hope and courage.

Adele Vorster, who also completed her undergraduate studies at the UFS, tackles the issue of eating disorders, youth trauma and broken relationships in her book, Tien voor een (Protea publishers).  Adele says her book is “a physical manifestation of her healing”.

The launch was also an expression of gratitude towards the publishers involved as well as the promotors. During 2022 a total of five books will be published that originated in the UFS’s master’s course in creative writing. 

See the departmental web page and the faculty rule book for more information on the MA in Creative Writing.