Vera Wülfing-Leckie (1954 – 8 February 2021) was a German-born British

homeopath Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dise ...

and a

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

of African literature. She lived in Africa for much of her adult life, and translated, among others, works by

Boubacar Boris Diop Boubacar Boris Diop (born 26 October 1946) is a Senegalese novelist, journalist and screenwriter. His best known work, ''Murambi, le livre des ossements'' (translated into English as ''Murambi: The Book of Bones''), is the fictional account ...

from Senegal and

Véronique Tadjo Véronique Tadjo (born 1955) is a writer, poet, novelist, and artist from Côte d'Ivoire. Having lived and worked in many countries within the African continent and African diaspora, diaspora, she feels herself to be Pan-Africanism, pan-African ...

from Côte d'Ivoire. Diop's novel ''Doomi Golo: The Hidden Notebooks'' was on the shortlist for the 2017

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...

Life

Living in Germany and the UK

Vera Wülfing was born in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

, Germany. During World War II, her father Gert Wülfing, a physician, was a prisoner-of-war in Russia. Her mother Ellen, also a physician, escaped the Russians from what later became East Germany to the West. Wülfing attended primary school in Tübingen. When her parents opened a practice in

Lörrach Lörrach () is a town in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss borders. It is the capital of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. It is the home of a number of large employers, including the ...

, close to the Swiss border where they felt safer, she went to the gymnasium. She received a scholarship to study in England in 1977, and studied classics and modern languages at Oxford's

Wadham College Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

. She met

Ross Leckie Peter Ross Leckie (born 6 May 1957) is a Scottish writer of historical novels, best known for his ''Carthage'' trilogy. Biography Leckie attended Drumtochty Castle Preparatory School and Fettes College. He studied classics at Corpus Christi C ...

, also a student there, whom she married in 1979. Their son Douglas was born the same year, and the family moved to Scotland in 1981, where they ran a farm. Daughter Xenia was born in 1983, and son Patrick in 1985.

Living in South Africa and Senegal

Wülfing-Leckie began studies in medicine at the

University of Dundee The University of Dundee; . Abbreviated as ''Dund.'' for post-nominals. is a public university, public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a University college#United Kingdom, university college in 1881 with a donation ...

, where she became friends with

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 ...

ns committed to fighting

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 ...

, such as

Edwin Cameron Edwin Cameron SCOB (born 15 February 1953 in Pretoria) is a retired judge who served as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is well known for his HIV/AIDS and gay-rights activism and was hailed by Nelson Mandela as "one ...

. The

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

in 1986 left her worried about the family's health, and planning to seek more safety in the southern hemisphere. The family moved to South Africa in 1989. A daughter, Alexia, was born in 1991. The couple divorced, and her husband returned to England. Wülfing-Leckie stayed and studied alternative medicine at the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the Te ...

in 1997, completing a doctorate in

homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...

. She opened her own practice in Johannesburg. Boubacar Diop IMG 2389

Wülfing-Leckie met

, a Senegalese novelist. She moved to Senegal in 2009, where she practised homeopathy, but also began to translate literature. She translated texts by Diop to English, in 2014 the political essay ''L'Afrique au-delà du miroir'' to ''Africa Beyond the Mirror''. In 2016, she translated the novel ''Doomi Golo'', first written in the

Wolof language Wolof (; Wolofal: ) is a language of Senegal, Mauritania, and the Gambia, and the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. ...

. Together with El Hadji Moustapha Diop, she translated mainly from a French version, ''Les Petits de guenon'', and the English novel was published as ''Doomi Golo: The Hidden Notebooks'' by the

Michigan State University Press Michigan State University Press is the scholarly publishing arm of Michigan State University. Scholarly publishing at the university significantly predates the establishment of its press in 1947. By the 1890s the institution's Experiment Stations ...

in the series African Humanities and the Arts. The book was on the shortlist for the 2017

. She translated a novel by

, an author from Côte d'Ivoire, into English as ''In the Company of Men''.

Health and death

Wülfing-Leckie was described by her former husband, Ross Leckie, as having suffered from depression for many years. Vera Wülfing-Leckie died in the UK while visiting her children, at age 66.

References

External links

Vera Wülfing-Leckie
goodreads.com

Ayebia Clarke 2014
Best Translated Book Award 2017 shortlists
McNally Robinson 20 April 2017 * Ann Morgan
Book of the month: Boubacar Boris Diop
ayearofreadingtheworld.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Wulfing Leckie, Vera 1954 births 2021 deaths People from Tübingen German women writers Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Dundee German emigrants to the United Kingdom British expatriates in Senegal British expatriates in South Africa University of Johannesburg alumni British translators British women writers German homeopaths German translators