Willem Anker
Willem Anker (1979- ) is a South African playwright and academic.
Contents
Biography
Born Willem Petrus Pienaar Anker on 3 Februarie 1979 in Citrusdal and raised in Wellington, where he matriculated at the Hugenote-hoërskool in 1996.
He is married to actress Christine Truter.
Training
Studied at the University of Stellenbosch, completing a BA-degree in languages, followed by a BA-Honours in Afrikaans-Nederlands and an MA in Creative Writing, supervised by Marlene van Niekerk. In 2007 he obtained a D.Litt. Degree in Afrikaans Literature at the same university.
Career
He teaches in the US Department of Afrikaans creative writing programme.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
His complex, literary yet visually arresting plays include Skroothonde (“Scrap metal dogs”, 2004 – Aardvark award), Sielsiek (“Mentally disturbed”, with Tertius Kapp, at Aardklop, 2006) and Slaghuis (“Slaughter house”, winner Sanlam Prize for Afrikaans Theatre, at Aardklop, 2006, published 2007).
He wrote the play Sakrament performed at the KKNK in 2009 and Skrapnel, staged at Aardklop 2009 and the Grahamstown Festival 2010. In 2012 his play Samsa-masjien was awarded an ATKV Woordveertjie award.
In 2007 also published a first novel, Siegfried (Kwela Books) and the novel Buys in 2014.
He is the translator of several plays e.g. [[Smag]].
Awards, etc
He won the Sanlam Prize for Slaghuis; ATKV Prize for Samsa-masjien; ATKV Prize for Skrapnel; UJ Prize for Siegfried.
He was awarded the Jan Rabie and Marjorie Wallace Bursary for Afrikaans Literature in 2011.
Sources
Die Burger, 23 January 2008.
Die Burger, 19 June 2015.
https://www.litnet.co.za/willem-anker-1979/
Various entries in the NELM and NALN catalogues.
Go to ESAT Bibliography
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