Joubert, Elsa 1922-
(Elsabé Antoinette Murray)

PERSONAL:

Given name, Elsabé Antoinette Murray; born October 19, 1922, in Paarl, South Africa; married Klaas Steytler (a journalist, publisher, and author), 1950 (died, 1998); children: two daughters, one son.Education: University of Stellenbosch, B.A., 1942, Secondary Education Diploma, 1943; University ofCape Town, M.A., 1945.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cape Town, South Africa.Agent—c/o Author Mail, Tafelberg Publishers, P.O. Box 879, Cape Town 8000, South Africa.

CAREER:

Hoër Meisieskool (school), Cradock, South Africa, 1945; Die Huisgenoot (magazine), editor of women's page section, 1946-48; full-time writer, 1948—.

MEMBER:

British Royal Society of Literature (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Eugène Marais Prize, 1964, forOns wag op die kaptein; CNA Prize, 1971, for Bonga;W.A. Hofmeyr Prize, 1979, for Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena, c. 1995, for Die reise van Isobelle;Louis Luyt Prize, 1997; Hertzog Prize for prose, 1998; honorary doctorate, Stellenbosch University, 2001; Hertzog Prize, for Die reise van Isobelle; Winifred Holtby Prize, British Royal Society; Olivier Award for best play; Obie Award for best script, for Poppie.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Ons wag op die kaptein (novel), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1963, translated by husband, Klaas Steytler, as To Die at Sunset, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1982.

Die Wahlerbrug, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1969.

Bonga, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1971.

Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (novel), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1978, translated by the author as The Long Journey of Poppie Non-gena, J. Ball (Johannesburg, South Africa)/Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1980, also translated as Poppie, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1980, and Poppie Nongena,Norton (New York, NY), 1985.

Melk (short stories), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1980.

Die laaste Sondag (novel), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1983, translated by Anna Jonker asThe Last Sunday, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1989.

(With Sandra Kotzé) Poppie—die Drama (play; based on Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena; first produced, c. 1983), Hannibal (London, England), 1983.

Die vier vriende en ander stories uit Afrika (short stories; for children), illustrated by Cora Coetzee, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1985, translated as The Four Friends: And Other Tales from Africa, Tafelberg, 1987.

Missionaris (novel), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1988.

Dansmaat (short stories), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1993.

Die reise van Isobelle, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1995, translated by Catherine Knox asIsobelle's Journey, Tafelberg/J. Ball (Johannesburg, South Africa), 2002.

Ons oorlog (novel), Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 2000.

Twee Vroue, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 2002.

n' Wonderlike geweld, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 2005.

Some of Joubert's works have been translated into other languages, including French and Spanish.

TRAVELOGUES

Water en woestyn: 'n reis deur Africa van die oorsprong van die Nyl tot by sy mond, Dagbreek Boekhandel (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1956.

Die verste reis, Dagbreek Boekhandel (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1959.

Suid van die wind: die verhaal van drie eilande, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1962.

Die staf van Monomotapa: reisjoernaal oor Mosambiek,Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1964.

Swerwer in die Herfsland, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1968.

Die nuwe Afrikaan: 'n reis deur Angola, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1974.

Gordel van Smarag: 'n reis met Leipoldt, Tafelberg (Cape Town, South Africa), 1997.

ADAPTATIONS:

Poppie Nongena was adapted to audiocassette, Hannibal Records (London, England), 1988.

SIDELIGHTS:

One of the first white authors in South Africa to write sympathetically about black people in her country, Elsa Joubert is an acclaimed, awardwinning novelist and short-story writer best known for her book Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena, which was later translated as The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena and was also adapted as an Obie Awardwinning play. Other novels and short stories by Joubert that followed have also addressed tensions between whites and blacks in South Africa, though she has done so from various perspectives.

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is a kind of fictionalized adaptation of a narrative by a black woman who was an employee of Joubert's. Sheila Roberts described the work in World Literature Todayas "arguably not a novel but a brilliant piece of New Journalism resulting from careful documentation." The story follows much of the life of the title character, who is of Xhosa descent but has spent all her life in the Cape Town area; she therefore speaks Afrikaans better than her people's tongue and is not culturally close to the Xhosa. Poppie's early life, while difficult, is fairly happy and she is able to marry a kind man and bear his children. Life begins to get worse after her marriage when white authorities say she has to move her family out of Cape Town and to her husband's ancestral home. In that region of the country, life is poorer for Poppie and her children. She eventually makes her way back, illegally, to Cape Town to find work, but her family starts to fall apart. Her husband dies of an illness, and some of her children become alcoholics or get involved in crime, while others become rebels against the government. Poppie, a conservative woman who finds strength in her Christianity, fails to grasp her children's radicalized behavior, and in the end seems resigned to seeing her family crumble. As Sally Ramsey put it in herTimes Literary Supplement assessment: "The most chilling message that the work as a whole conveys is that sensitivity, warmth and generosity cannot endure when faced with perpetual hardship."

Many critics found The Long Journey of Poppie Non-genato be a powerful condemnation of South African society, which at the time was still under the apartheid system. Roberts, for instance, declared it "a work of art." Washington Book World contributor Richard Cohen commented: "When in 1979 the book was first published in Afrikaans, it became impossible for the ruling whites to say, as they had before, ‘But I didn't know.’ Now they know."

In other works of fiction since The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena, Joubert has often shown racial problems through the eyes of white characters. Usually such tensions are set in South Africa, but in her first novel, Ons wag op die kaptein, which was translated as To Die at Sunset, the setting is Northern Angola. The main character, Ana-Paula, came to Africa after she married her husband, but since that time has grown distant not only from him but also from the other white people there; the natives, meanwhile, are seen as such alien people that she cannot even think of associating with them. The story begins when Ana-Paula finds herself hiding with other whites from a black rebellion led by a man from the Congo; it then proceeds to provide a narrative through flashbacks. In this early work, Times Literary Supplement writer Dennis Walder found some weaknesses in Joubert's portrayal of blacks as "exotic, mysterious, frightening … but never, really, human." However, he praised the work overall for the author's "elegance and insight" in her writing.

The novels Missionaris and Die laaste Sondag (The Last Sunday) are set again in South Africa and use white people's perspective. The former is about a meek Dutch missionary who comes unprepared to South Africa to minister to the native people. While Barend J. Toerien, writing in World Literature Today, felt the novel gets off to a slow start, he still praised this "fascinating" work that continues to address "the impact of Europe on Africa and, above all, of the validity of the Christian religion." Joubert is even more direct in criticizing the Dutch Reformed Church in The Last Sunday. In this tale, the dominee (church leader) of a congregation in South Africa agrees to conceal the bloody clothing of a black family who has been slaughtered by whites. He hides the clothes behind a very obvious wall that makes the local people very suspicious; inevitably, they become wise to what is going on, and violence erupts. Toerien, writing again inWorld Literature Today, declared the book "a sincere accusation against the Afrikaans churches for their loveless and patriarchal relationship toward blacks."

In a kind of summary of years of history in South Africa, Joubert's 1995 novel Die reise van Isobelle(Isobelle's Journey) is a multigenerational story that offers a "depiction of the Afrikaner people: their paranoia and confused loyalties vis-a-vis Britain, theEnglish language, and the blacks" that seems to inevitably lead to their heavy-handed treatment of the native people and, ultimately, violence. World Literature Today critic Toerien praised the saga especially for its "sympathy and impartiality" toward its subject.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Belles Lettres, March-April, 1988, Evelyn Hawthorne, review of Poppie Nongena, p. 3.

Contemporary Review, October, 1982, Rosalind Wade, review of Poppie and To Die at Sunset, p. 215.

Nation, May 1, 1982, Richard Gilman, review of The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena, p. 538.

New Statesman & Society, December 22, 1989, Julia Hobsbawn, "Apartheid's Calling Cards," review of The Last Sunday, p. 44.

New Yorker, February 24, 1986, review of Poppie Nongena, p. 104.

Spectator, September 20, 1980, Paul Ableman, "Documentary," review of Poppie, p. 24.

Times Literary Supplement, November 21, 1980, Sally Ramsey, "Breaking Through," review of Poppie,p. 1342; July 30, 1982, Dennis Walder, "Exclusive Familiarities," review of To Die at Sunset, p. 839.

Washington Post Book World, February 23, 1986, Richard Cohen, "The Price of Apartheid," review ofPoppie Nongena, pp. 4-5.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1979, Sheila Roberts, review of Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena,p. 735; autumn, 1984, Barend J. Toerien, review of Die laaste Sondag, p. 654; autumn, 1989, Barend J. Toerien, review of Missionaris, pp. 730- 731; spring, 1994, Sheila Roberts, review ofDansmaat, p. 415; winter, 1996, Barend J. Toerien, review of Die reise van Isobelle, p. 228.