Ettie Bierman

Ettie Bierman was an educationist and author.

Biography

Born in Johannesburg on 22 Januarie 1941, she had her schooling at the Malvern Laerskool and the Kensington Hoërskool in Johannesburg. This was followed by a three year course in education at the Pretoria Onderwyskollege, specialising in Speech and Drama.

Her initial career consisted of two years teaching and five years as an international air stewardess for the South African Airways. Having met and married Jannie Wiehman in 1968, she returned to teaching at a primary school in Bloemfontein, where she began writing a few plays for performance by her students, and compiled two collections of plays for publication (see below).

When her husband passed away in 1971, she moved to Edenvale to teach there, and in 1974 left teaching to concentrate on her writing, which now consisted mainly of prose works in Afrikaans, published as serials in magazines, light novels, short stories and stories for the youth. She also translated a number of works into Afrikaans.

She was later married to the publisher Chris Pelser for a short while and ultimately to the author Roelf van Rensburg, also an author.

After retirement the two of them settled in in Ramsgate, Kwazulu-Natal, where she passed away on 2 September 2020.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Besides teaching speech and dr4ama at various schools, she wrote a few pieces and compiled two collections of play-texts for school use, bioth published by J.L. van Schaik. They are Monoloë, Samesprake en Toneelstukkies (1968) and Uit Die Banke Op Die Planke (1971).