Arthur Kenneth Nortje (16 December 1942 – 11 December 1970) was a South African poet.

Life

Nortje was born in

Oudtshoorn Oudtshoorn (, ), the "ostrich capital of the world", is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, located between the Swartberg mountains to the north and the Outeniqua Mountains to the south. Two ostrich-feather booms, during 1865–1 ...

and went to school in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...

, where he was taught by the acclaimed writer

Dennis Brutus Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 – 26 December 2009) was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its racial policy of apartheid. ...

. After school he studied at the University College of the Western Cape and later received a scholarship to

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship St ...

in the UK, where he obtained a BA degree. He emigrated to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1967, teaching in

Hope, British Columbia Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end ...

and

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

but returned to Oxford in 1970 to work on a doctorate. He died shortly afterward of a drug overdose. In 2017, South African poet,

Athol Williams Athol Williams (born 20 June 1970) is a South African poet, social philosopher and public intellectual based at Oxford University. Life Williams was born in Lansdowne, Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in Mitchells Plain, the coloured tow ...

located Nortje's grave at section B3, Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. The small headstone reads "Arthur Nortje, 1942-1970, South African Poet." His poems were published posthumously in the collections ''Dead Roots'' (1973) and ''Lonely Against the Light'' (1973). They deal extensively with his own personal alienation, being classified as coloured in

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, and his experiences of exile. In 2000, the University of South Africa Press in Pretoria published ''Anatomy of Dark: Collected Poems of Arthur Nortje''. His works have been dealt with extensively in Ralph Pordzik's ''Die moderne englischsprachige Lyrik in Südafrika 1950-1980: Eine Darstellung aus funktions- und wirkungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive'' and in an article entitled: "No Longer Need I Shout Freedom in the House: Arthur Nortje, the English Poetical Tradition and the Breakdown of Communication in South African English Poetry in the 1960s", published in ''English Studies in Africa'' 41.2 (1998) 35-53.

Works

*''Dead roots: poems'', Heinemann, 1973, *Dirk Klopper, ed. ''Anatomy of dark: collected poems of Arthur Nortje'', University of South Africa, 2000 *Craig W. McLuckie, Ross Tyner, eds. ''Arthur Nortje, Poet and South African: New Critical and Contextual Essays'', Unisa Press, University of South Africa, 2004,

References

;Sources * 1942 births 1970 deaths 20th-century South African poets Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford South African male poets 20th-century South African male writers {{SouthAfrica-poet-stub