Marlene van Niekerk

Marlene van Niekerk is a South African academic, novelist and poet who is best known internationally for her novels Triomf and Agaat. Her graphic and controversial descriptions of a poor Afrikaner family in Johannesburg in Triomf brought her to the forefront of a post-apartheid society still struggling to come to terms with all the changes in South Africa. This novel was made into an award-winning film, likewise called Triomf_(film), in 2008, directed by Michael Raeburn.

She explains that the portraying the separation of the sexes in her work is the result of being "outside the main arena" as an Afrikaner lesbian.

Marlene van Niekerk was born on 10 November 1954 on the farm Tygerhoek near Caledon in the Western Cape, South Africa. She attended school in Riviersonderend and Stellenbosch, where she matriculated from Hoërskool Bloemhof.

She studied languages and philosophy at Stellenbosch University and obtained an MA with the thesis: "Die Aard en Belang van die Literêre Vormgewing in 'Also sprach Zarathustra'" (The Nature and Significance of Literary Shaping in Also sprach Zarathustra) in 1978.

While at university, she wrote three plays for amateur theatre. In 1979 she moved to Germany to join theatres in Stuttgart and Mainz to study directing. From 1980 to 1985, she continued her study of philosophy in the Netherlands and obtained a Dutch doctorandus with a thesis on the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Paul Ricoeur: "Taal en Mythe: Een Structuralistische en Een Hermeneutische Benadering" (Language and Myth: A Structuralist and Hermeneutic Approach) from the University of Amsterdam.

Back in South Africa, she lectured in philosophy at the University of Zululand, and later at Unisa. During the 1990s, she was a lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Since 2000, Marlene van Niekerk is a professor in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, Stellenbosch University, where she teaches creative writing.

• Eugène Marais Prize, 1977, for Sprokkelster
• Ingrid Jonker Prize, 1978, for Sprokkelster
• M-Net Literary Award, 1995, for Triomf
• CNA Prize, 1995, for Triomf
• Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, 1995, for Triomf
• M-Net Literary Award, 2005, for Agaat
• WA Hofmeyr Prize, 2005, for Agaat
• University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing in Afrikaans, 2005, for Agaat
• Hertzog Prize for Prose, 2007, for Agaat
• CL Engelbrecht Prize from the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, 2007, for Agaat
• Sol Plaatje Prize for Translation, 2007, for The Way of the Women
• Sunday Times Literary Award for Prose, 2007, for The Way of the Women
• Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 2008, for The Way of the Women
• Helgaard Steyn Prize, 2008, for Agaat
• Honorary Doctorate from Tilburg University, The Netherlands, 2009
• University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing in Afrikaans, 2010, for Die Sneeuslaper
• Order of Ikhamanga (silver) from the President of South Africa, 2011, for "outstanding contribution to literary arts and culture"
• Elisabeth Eybers Prize for poetry, one of the Media24 Books Literary Awards, 2014, for Kaar
• University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing in Afrikaans, 2014, for Kaar
• Hertzog Prize for Poetry, 2014, for Kaar
• Nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, 2015, for "continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage"