ONDER 'N BLOEDROOI HEMEL, liefde en geweld in Suid-Afrika, 'n memoir

431pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2023

Annemarié van Niekerk, who lives in The Hague, travelled back to South Africa to attend the funeral of a friend who was murdered, together with his mother, on their farm in the Eastern Cape. The journey leads her to reflect on her life in South Africa and her own experience of violence. She moved to the Netherlands in 2004.

Annemarié van Niekerk reviews books for the Dutch newspaper Trouw and does translation work. She is co-author (with Pieta van Beer) of My Mother's Mother's Mother: South African women's writing from 17th-century Dutch to contemporary Afrikaans. She has compiled several collections, including Raising the Blinds: A century of South African women's stories and The Torn Veil: Women's stories from the continent of Africa.