Hennie Aucamp

(1934-March 2014) Prolific and highly regarded writer of Afrikaans short stories, poetry, plays, sketches, lyrics. A lecturer, later professor, in the faculty of Education at the University of Stellenbosch and teacher of creative writing skills. Most important in the history of South African theatre for his espousal of the Afrikaans cabaret – the pre-war German and Dutch political cabaret in particular and heavily influenced by Bertolt Brecht – – as a vehicle for resistance and protest among Afrikaans writers. Besides a few of short plays (including a youth work Die Appel written at 16, and the popular Jan Blom Dans ‘n Mazurka, Blomtyd is Bloeityd , Sjampanje 1988), many of his Afrikaans cabarets (styled a Kabaret in Afrikaans) were developed and produced in association with Herman Pretorius of the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department - and have been seminal in establishing the genre and influencing a large number of other writers, and many of the songs have become classic Afrikaans chansons. The cabarets are: Met permissie gesê (lit. "Said with your permission")(1980); Slegs vir Almal (lit. "Only for everyone")(1986); Blomtyd is Bloeityd (1987), Teen Latenstyd (1997) Oudisie! (1991), Wie gryp kry ‘n handvol (1994), and Sewe Doodsondes ("Seven Deadly Sins") (199*). Aucamp has also written wquaite a subnstantial body of theory around his notions of the cabaret - or Kabaret as he calls it. He has won the Hertzog Prize for Literature ** times, and received an Honarary Doctorate from the University of Stellenbosch in 1999.