Arthur Nortje
{{Short description|South African poet (1942–1970)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1942|12|16|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Oudtshoorn, Union of South Africa
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1970|12|11|1942|12|16|df=yes}}
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| nationality = South African
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| education = University College of the Western Cape
| alma_mater = Jesus College, Oxford
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| genre = Poetry
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Arthur Kenneth Nortje (16 December 1942 – 11 December 1970[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3354 Arthur Kenneth Nortje, The Literary Encyclopedia]) was a South African poet.
Life
Nortje was born in Oudtshoorn{{cite journal |date=December 1978 |title=Biografski dodaci |trans-title=Biographic appendices |url=http://dhk.hr/casopis-republika/ |language=sh |journal=Republika: Časopis za kulturu i društvena pitanja (Izbor iz novije afričke književnosti) |volume=XXXIV |issue=12 |pages=1424–1427 |place=Zagreb, SR Croatia }} and went to school in Port Elizabeth, where he was taught by the writer Dennis Brutus. After school he studied at the University College of the Western Cape and later received a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford in the UK, where he obtained a BA degree.{{cite web|url=http://lsa.unisa.ac.za/news/archive/march/vol2/unisapress.html|title= Background: The Nortje Collection| publisher=University of South Africa (Department of Corporate Communication and Marketing)| date=22 March 2006| access-date=2008-02-26| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080226094957/http://lsa.unisa.ac.za/news/archive/march/vol2/unisapress.html| archive-date= 26 February 2008 | url-status= live}}
He emigrated to Canada in 1967, teaching in Hope, British Columbia and Toronto 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 located Nortje's grave at section B3, Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. The small headstone reads "Arthur Nortje, 1942-1970, South African Poet."{{Cite web|url=https://arthurnortje.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/a-visit-to-arthurs-grave/|title = A Visit to Arthur's Grave|date = 23 February 2019}}
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 South Africa, 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, {{ISBN|9780435901417}}
- 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, {{ISBN|9781868882595}}
References
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;Sources
- {{cite web|url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3354|author=McLuckie, Craig, Ross Tyner|at=Chapter "Arthur Kenneth Nortje"|title=The Literary Encyclopedia|date= 9 May 2003}}
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Category:20th-century South African poets
Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford
Category:South African male poets
Category:20th-century South African male writers
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