Amelia Blossom Pegram (3 October 1935 – 11 May 2022), also known as Amelia Blossom House, was a South African writer and performer, who began her working life as a teacher and was also an actor and model.

Biography

She was born in Wynberg, Cape Town, South Africa, to Henry Bowman-Pegram and Evelyn Minnie West on 3 October, but there was a discrepancy as to the year of her birth. Pegram explained: "I was born in the spring time, and that's why my name is Blossom. Spring time in South Africa is October....I have two birth certificates, and that sounds kind of crazy, but one says '38, the other one says '35....It came about through record keeping in South Africa." After graduating in 1961 from the University of Cape Town with a BA degree in history and English, she began a career as a teacher but in 1963 left South Africa for political reasons, eventually settling in London, England, where she studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, later acting on stage, television, radio and in film. In 1972, she moved to the United States, living and teaching in

Fort Knox Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold res ...

, and she earned a master's degree from the University of Louisville in 1977, writing her dissertation her dissertation on Dennis Brutus. Her short stories, poems and essays have been published in many journals, among them ''

Staffrider ''Staffrider'' was a South African literary magazine that was published between 1978 and 1996. History and profile ''Staffrider'' was first published in March 1978. Its founder was Mike Kirkwood. The magazine took its name from slang for people h ...

'', '' Présence Africaine'', ''

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'', ''The Gar'', and '' Essence'', and she read and performed her poetry internationally. She authored several books, including ''Our Sun Will Rise: Poems from South Africa'' (1989), and her writing is included in the anthology ''

Daughters of Africa ''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...

'', edited by

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Let' ...

(1992), and in ''Conversations with Kentucky Writers II'' (2015).

Honours

Recognition that Pegram received for her work included a research grant from the

Kentucky Foundation for Women The Kentucky Foundation for Women promotes feminist art and social justice by awarding grants to individual artists and organizations, providing time and space for artists and activists at its retreat center, sharing information, and building alli ...

, the Kwanzaa Honors List, Woman of the Year, the Louisville Board of Alderman Literary Award, inauguration into the Pan African Writers Association, and the South African Women for Women (SAWW) Arts and Literature award.

Selected bibliography

* ''Checklist of Black South African Women Writers in English'', 1980. * ''Deliverance'', 1986. * ''Our Sun Will Rise: Poems for South Africa'', 1989. * ''Nelson Mandelamandla'' (with

Cosmo Pieterse Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse (born 1930 in Windhoek, Namibia) is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist. Education and career Cosmo Pieterse went to the University of Cape Town and taught in Cape Town until lea ...

), 1989. * ''Echoes Across a Thousand Hills'', 1994. * ''Beneath the Baobab'', 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pegram, Amelia Blossom 20th-century South African poets 20th-century South African women writers 21st-century South African women writers 1935 births Alumni of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama 2022 deaths South African actresses South African schoolteachers South African women poets University of Cape Town alumni University of Louisville alumni Writers from Cape Town