Etienne Leroux
Etienne Leroux ( born June 13, 1922 in Oudtshoorn, † December 30, 1989 in Bloemfontein, real name Stephen Petrus Daniël le Roux ) was a South African writer. He belonged to the avant-garde movement of the writing in Afrikaans Sestigers.
Life
Leroux's father Stephen Patrus le Roux was a member of the National Party from 1948 to 1958 and was Minister of Agriculture in the apartheid government. Leroux studied at the University of Stellenbosch Law and reached there a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law. In 1946 he purchased the farm Yes -Nee ( " yes-no " ) at Koffiefontein that henceforth he farmed alongside his work as an author. Among other things, he bred Merino sheep, and built cotton and tomatoes. In 1948 he married the painter Renée Malherbe, with whom he had three children. In 1954 he spent five months in Europe, especially in Paris. The following year, his first novel, The Eerste van lewe Colet was published under his pseudonym Etienne Leroux (about: " Colets first life "). The first three books form a trilogy.
In the 1960s, Leroux was a member of the Sestigers that politically opposed the majority opinion of the Boers, whilst being exaggerated a stylistic renewal of Afrikaans literature. Published in 1962 the novel Sewe dae by the silver stone ( about: "Seven days at the Silver Stone" ), of the visit of the young Henry van Eeden (about: " Henry of paradise " ) in the Boer family Silberstein on the farm Welgevonden portrays. He wants there to visit his fiancée unknown to him, but must instead accompanied by the master of the house, the farm and different groups of people to meet. The book parodies the novel style of earlier Boer novels and describes each of the seven days with increasing surreality. Especially since 1964, after receiving the prestigious Hertzog price of the South African Academy for the Sciences and Arts for Afrikaans writer for Sewe dae by the silver stone, Leroux was publicly attacked by many Boers and called a communist.
In 1964 the Leroux novel Een vir Azazel (about: "One for Azazel "). Together with Sewe dae by the Silberstein's and The derde oog (about: " The Third Eye " ), it forms the " Silver Stone Trilogy", which was published in English and the British publisher Penguin as To a dubious salvation. Leroux was from 1967 a friend of the American writer Graham Greene after he had read the Sewe dae by Silver Stone. 1968, dissolved the movement of Sestigers, because only a portion of the members, including Leroux, wanted to emphasize the political role of the writer more. In 1969, he divorced. In 1970 he married the pianist Elizabeth Joubert. The next three novels form the third trilogy.
Leroux's 1976 novel published Magersfontein, O Magersfontein also describes the work of a film crew who want to enact the Battle of Magersfontein in the Second Boer War in parodic form. Initially allowed the Publication Control Board, the censorship authority of South Africa, publication, later it was banned after the stock morele strandaarde (about: " This action is moral values " ) with Information Minister Connie Mulder had complained about the book - even though the initiator in its admission, the book had not understood. Only in 1980 the ban was lifted. Nevertheless, he was awarded in 1979 for this work to the Hertzog Prize. However, after the award, he left the academy because they refused to accept the writer Adam Small, who belonged to the population of Coloureds.
In 1982 onse Hymie, a satire of the apartheid system. A Jew wanders through the Karoo, contrasted with a " Meat Palace ", a " microcosm of modernity ", in which the plurality of apartheid laws ultimately leads that the computer controlling it collapses. Leroux's books have not been translated into German.
Leroux died in Bloemfontein and was buried in the family grave in Wamakersdrift at Koffiefontein.