Hennie van Coller

Biography

Born Hendrik Petrus van Coller in Pretoria on 24 March 1949, the son of Hendrik and Elizabeth van Coller.

He matriculated at the Hoërskool Florida in 1966, then completed a B.A.degree in Law in 1969 and a B.A. Honnours in 1970 (cum laude), both at the University of the Witwatersrand. He contiued his studies at the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, obtaining an M.A. degree in Afrikaans with a thesis on the poet and playwright N.P. van Wyk Louw (1973) and then undertook his doctoral study at the Rijksuniversiteit van Utrecht under the literary theorist D.W. Fokkema, to obtain a Drs. Litt. et Phil. in Algemene Literatuurwetenskap en Nederlandse Letterkunde, (majoring in Comparistiek, with secondary subjects Theoretische Literatuurwetenschap en Nederlandse Letteren) in 1975. He obtained his D.Litt degree at the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit in 1981 with a thesis on the novelist Etienne Leroux.

He served as an academic assistant at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1970 to 1972, then becamew a lecturer in Afrikaans at the University of Natal in Durban in 1973. Om his return from the Netherlands in 1976 he was appointed a lecturer at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. In 1979 he became a senior lecturer in die Departement Afrikaans-Nederlands aan die University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein, promoted to professor in 1984, to HOD in 1988 and in 1997 to head of van the department of modern languages (Afrikaans-Nederlands, German and French).

He married Elizabeth Magdalena van der Straaten on 18 Desember 1971 and the couple have three daughters.