Sarah Jane Britten (born 31 August 1974) is a South African writer, blogger, lipstick artist and communication strategist.
Early life and career
Britten attended Bryanston Primary School and
Redhill High School in
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
and studied Drama at the
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...
, where she completed a
BA(Hons)
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
in Dramatic Art in 1996, a MA in
Communication Studies
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...
in 1997 and a PhD in Applied English Language Studies in 2005.
At university she explored her interests in national identity and humour with a Masters Research Report on South African humour, focussing on the
Madam & Eve
''Madam & Eve'' is a daily comic strip originating in South Africa. The strip, by Stephen Francis and Rico Schacherl, is syndicated in 13 publications and claims a daily readership of over 4 million people. The strip was first published in July 1 ...
comic strip, and her PhD thesis ''One Nation, One Beer: The Mythology of the New South Africa in Advertising''.
She worked in journalism and advertising prior to becoming a freelance communication strategist.
Writing
Britten has authored two young adult fiction
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...
novels and three non-fiction books on local insults. In 2012 she wrote "... insults are also markers of collective identity. This is why I started collecting South African insults back in 2004: I wanted to understand what makes us who we are, and insults are one prism through which to view the national self ...".
She regularly contributes to ''Thought Leader
A thought leader has been described as an individual or firm recognized as an authority in a specific field and also as business jargon.
Meanings Go-to expert
From the perspective of a thought leader as the 'go-to expert', being a thought leader ...
'', a news and opinion website run by the ''Mail & Guardian
The ''Mail & Guardian'' is a South African weekly newspaper and website, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on political analysis, investigative reporting, Southern African news, local arts, music and popular cultu ...
'' newspaper.
She wrote the chapter ''How Not to Emigrate'' in ''Should I stay or should I go? To live in or leave South Africa'', having returned to South Africa after emigrating to Australia in 2008. In the editor's introduction to the book, Tim Richman writes: "Many of the contributions in this book are deeply personal; such is the nature of the topic. For Sarah Britten, there was no other way to approach her traumatic and disastrous emigration experience, one that ultimately destroyed her marriage. Or, as she suggests, perhaps it extended it beyond its sell-by date. Sarah is candid, open, honest, raw – uncomfortably at times. But hers is a necessary and hugely revealing piece, clarifying both the extent of the life-hold that emigration can exert on individuals and families, as well as the stresses it can generate." At the time, she wrote about her emigration experience on her ''Thought Leader'' blog which she named ''Gondwanaland'' after the ancient Gondwana
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...
supercontinent that included Africa, Australia and Antarctica.[
]
Lipstick art
Britten paints cityscapes
In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, Publishing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Town ...
and other subjects, namely still life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...
, bulls and bears ( stock market trend symbols), dogs, cats, horses, sharks, crocodiles, rhinos, Nguni cattle
The Nguni is a cattle breed indigenous to Southern Africa. A hybrid of different Indian and later European cattle breeds, they were introduced by pastoralist tribes ancestral to modern Nguni people to Southern Africa during their migration from t ...
and dung beetles, with lipstick. Her art is influenced by ''Zoo City
''Zoo City'' is a 2010 science fiction novel by South African author Lauren Beukes. It won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle for best novel. The cover of the British edition of the book was awarded the 2010 BSFA ...
'', a science fiction novel by South African author Lauren Beukes
Lauren Beukes (born 5 June 1976) is a South African novelist, short story writer, journalist and television scriptwriter.
Early life
Lauren Beukes was born 5 June 1976. She grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She attended Roedean School in J ...
. On her art website, she says: "Set in Hillbrow, the zoo city of the title, it features characters mysteriously attached to animal familiars as a form of punishment. Zoo City is riotous, chaotic and completely crazy and I loved the way it brought to life the animal energy that lurks just beneath the surface of the city. After reading the book, I started experimenting with placing animals in cityscapes, both the kind that are found in cities (dogs and cats) and those that exist in Johannesburg only as metaphors – sharks and crocodiles, for example. I’ve used a limited palette of black, grey and red to evoke the dystopian atmosphere of the city, its grey grittiness a contrast to throbbing red life. The Zoo City series led to my experiments with Ngunis, which have taken me in a more colourful direction."Land Rover
Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...
marketing campaign, was held at ''Velo'' gallery café in Braamfontein
Braamfontein (English: ''blackberry spring'', or more prosaicly ''blackberry springs''; also known as Braam) is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and some of South Africa's major c ...
in July 2012.
Awards
*2000 Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature – Silver – ''The Worst Year of My Life – So Far''[
]
Publications
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* German translation of ''The Worst Year of My Life – So Far''.
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References
External links
Sarah Britten Art: Paintings in lipstick
{{DEFAULTSORT:Britten, Sarah
1974 births
Living people
21st-century South African women writers
21st-century South African women artists
White South African people
People from Johannesburg
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
South African bloggers
South African children's writers
South African women children's writers
South African women bloggers