Mark Behr

Mark Behr ( * October 19, 1963 at Oljorro, Tanganyika ) is a born, grew up in South Africa in present-day Tanzania writer. He is a professor at American Rhodes College in Memphis.

Life and work

Behr was born in Tanganyika; his parents were white farmers. The family emigrated to South Africa in 1964, where they defined themselves as Afrikaners. Behr was therefore an Afrikaans -language education. After graduating from high school, he was drafted into the army and served in the Angolan war. Then he studied from 1985 to 1989 at the University of Stellenbosch and became an agent for the apartheid regime by observing other students. He was a double agent and spying for the then opposition, banned African National Congress ( ANC).

After 1994, followed by trips and a master's degree at the American University of Notre Dame in International Peace Studies ( 1993), Fiction (1998) and English Literature ( 2000). His first novel, The reuk van Appels or The Smell of Apples, in 1995 first, then published in Afrikaans to English. Previously, Behr had already written short stories. His homosexuality is often reflected in homosexual characters within his works.

Reception

Due to its ambivalent political status as a former double agent is the critical reception of his works, especially in South Africa, mixed.

Works

Novels

• The Smell of Apples ( 1995)
• Embrace (2000)
• Kings of the Water ( 2009) Water kings. The Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-88423-370-2.

Awards

• M -Net Award
• Betty Trask Award

• Author
• Literature ( South Africa)
• Literature ( Afrikaans )
• Novel, epic
• Literature ( 20th century)
• Literature ( 21st century)
• South Africans
• Born in 1963
• Man