Herman charles bosman biography
Herman Charles Bosman
Herman Charles Bosman (–), a household name in South Africa, was born near Cape Town but lived most of his life in the Transvaal. He spent the first six months of as a teacher at a farm school in the Marico District of what was then the Western Transvaal. His term was cut short when, on a vacation back at his family home in Johannesburg, he shot and killed his step-brother. He spent four years on death row in Pretoria Central Prison before his sentence was commuted. Upon his release in , he took up a career as a journalist and began his celebrated Oom Schalk stories, which culminated in the publication of Mafeking Road in His first novel, Jacaranda in the Night, appeared the same year while his prison memoir, Cold Stone Jug, was published two years later. Bosman died of heart failure in October He has come to be widely considered South Africa’s greatest short story writer.
Herman Charles Bosman
Herman Charles Bosman () [1] was a South African writer, dramatist and journalist
Biography
Bosman was born near Cape Town but grew up and lived in the Transvaal for most of his life. In , while on holiday at home from his new teaching post on a farm school near Zwingli in the Marico District, he was arrested and subsequently convicted for the murder of his step-brother. He was condemned to hang on death row, but his sentence was commuted to hard labour and he was eventually released after four years in prison. His unique account of this time was published as Cold Stone Jug in
After his release on parole in , he worked as a journalist in Johannesburg. In he left for London, returning to South Africa in , following the outbreak of war across Europe. It was during this time in London that Bosman wrote the bulk of stories that were eventually published as Mafeking Road in Bosman became quite famous for these short stories that were set against the background of the Marico district in Western Transvaal and introduced one of South Africa's most endearing fictional characters, "Oom Schalk Lourens". In the same year, Bosman published his first novel, Jacaranda in the Night.
Bosman also wrote under the pseudonyms Will-o'-the-Wisp, Ben Eath, Ben Africa, Ben Onion, Ferdinand Fandango, Herman Malan or simply as H.C.B.
Bosman died of heart failure in at the age of forty-six.
Education
Bosman was educated at Jeppe High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, where he trained as a teacher.
Plays
He wrote three short one-act plays:
Adaptations of other writing
A number of Bosman's works have been dramatised, notably of course the popular "Oom Schalk Lourens" series of short stories done as one-man shows by Patrick Mynhardt: beginning with A Sip of Jerepigo (); More Jerepigo, (); Just Jerepigo, or A Sundowner with Oom Schalk (19??); Another Sip of Jerepigo (); and Tjeerio Jerepigo (). Other performers who have This is the absorbing (and often shocking) story of the life of the most famous and best loved writer in South Africa of the first half of the twentieth century. Bosman was born in the Cape in , schooled in Johannesburg and trained as a teacher, then sent to a backveld school - the people he met there and the observations he made were the source for the stories in his bestselling Mafeking Road. After a sensational trial, found guilty of murdering his step-brother in cold blood, he served his term in Pretoria Central Prison - the source of his classic Cold Stone Jug. During his years of exile in Paris and London and when he returned to South Africa to make a popular career as a sly commentator, he produced A cask of Jerepigo. Before his untimely death in , he became the country's best loved humorist. In this biography Bosman's extraordinary career is reconstructed from documents and his papers, to present the most revealing and explicit portrait of South Africa's most controversial author. Gray's investigation has thrown new light on many aspects of Bosman's life - some of his outrageous actions will astound his many faithful readers. Bosman himself ) with which Gray at times paints this fuller-than-ever-before portrait of his subject.Life Sentence: A Biography of Herman Charles Bosman
Herman Charles Bosman
South African novelist, short story writer, satirist
Herman Charles Bosman | |
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Herman Charles Bosman | |
| Born | ()3 February Kuils River, South Africa |
| Died | 14 October () (aged&#;46) Johannesburg, South Africa |
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Herman Charles Bosman (3 February – 14 October ) was widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English-language works utilize primarily Afrikaner characters and highlight the many contradictions in Afrikaner society during the first half of the twentieth century.
Early life
Bosman was born at Kuils River, near Cape Town, in the Cape Colony, to an Afrikaner family. He was raised with English as well as Afrikaans. While Bosman was still young, his family travelled frequently, he spent a short time at Potchefstroom College which would later become Potchefstroom High School for Boys, he later moved to Johannesburg where he went to school at Jeppe High School for Boys in Kensington. While there he contributed to the school magazine. When Bosman was sixteen, he started writing short stories for the national Sunday newspaper (the Sunday Times). He attended the Johannesburg College of Education (which in was incorporated into the University of the Witwatersrand) and submitted various pieces to student literary competitions.
Career and adult life
After graduation, Bosman accepted a teaching position in the Groot Marico district in an Afrikaans-language school. The area provided the backdrop for his best-known short stories, the Oom Schalk Lourens series (featuring an older character named Oom Schalk Lourens) and the Voorkamer sketches.
Over the June school holidays in , Bosman visited his family in Johannesburg. During an argument, he shot and killed his stepbrother. Bos