Antjie Krog

Antjie Krog (born 1952) is a South African writer and academic, best known for her Afrikaans poetry, her reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her 1998 book Country of My Skull.

Krog was born in 1952 into an Afrikaner family of writers, and was the daughter of Afrikaans writer Dot Serfontein.

She grew up on a farm in Kroonstad, Orange Free State.

Her literary career began in 1970 when, at the height of John Vorster's apartheid years, she wrote an anti-apartheid poem titled "My mooi land" ("My beautiful country") for her school magazine.

The poem opened with the line, "Kyk, ek bou vir my 'n land / waar 'n vel niks tel nie" ("I'm building myself a country where skin colour doesn't matter").

It caused a stir in her conservative Afrikaans-speaking community and was reported on in the national media.

Krog's first volume of poetry, Dogter van Jefta ("Daughter of Jephta"), was published shortly afterwards, while Krog was still just seventeen.

Krog published her first book of verse, Dogter van Jefta ("Daughter of Jephta"), in 1970.

Since then she has published several further volumes.

"My mooi land" was later translated by Ronnie Kasrils and published in the January 1971 issue of Secheba, the official publication of the African National Congress (ANC) in London.

ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada reportedly read the poem aloud after his release from Robben Island.

Krog has a BA (Hons) from the University of the Orange Free State (1976), an MA in Afrikaans from the University of Pretoria (1983), and a teaching diploma from the University of South Africa.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, living with her husband and young children in Kroonstad, Krog taught at a black high school and teachers' college.

Her poetry is often autobiographical, involving reflections on love and the responsibilities of artists, and since the 1980s has often dealt with racial and gender politics.

Krog has said that her sixth collection, Jerusalemgangers (1985), was the first to have "a complete political foundation."

She writes mostly in free-verses.

Krog's poetry is critically acclaimed in South Africa.

She has won two Hertzog Prizes and several other national awards.

Her poetry has been translated into English, Dutch, French, and several other languages.

In Kroonstad, she was politically active – attending ANC meetings and protests – and became involved with the Congress of South African Writers, founded in 1987.

She was invited to read a poem at a "Free Mandela" rally in the township of Maokeng.

In 1993, Krog became editor of a now-defunct Afrikaans current-affairs journal, Die Suid-Afrikaan ("The South African").

Her anti-Apartheid activities during this period, and the hostility they evoked among conservative white locals, are the topic of her first work of prose, Relaas van 'n moord (1995; "Account of a Murder").

From 1995 to 2000, she was a radio journalist at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

She led the radio team that covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from 1996 to 1998, and her reporting during this period became the basis of her second prose work, Country of My Skull (1998).

Krog reported under her married name, Antjie Samuel.

In the past two decades, Krog has published three volumes of new poetry, four prose books and a book of essays, and several translations, including two from indigenous African languages.

Krog also translated Nelson Mandela's biography, Long Walk to Freedom, into Afrikaans.

She regularly translates from Dutch into Afrikaans as a writing exercise.

Following the publication of Country of My Skull, Krog gave a series of lectures about the TRC in Europe and the United States.

More recently, she taught a course on translation at Columbia University's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

She is best known for her book Country of My Skull (1998), which is based on her experiences reporting on the TRC.

It was first published in English in Down to My Last Skin (2000).

Reviewing Kleur kom nooit alleen nie (2000), Leon de Kock wrote, "She messes with proprieties, both sexual and political... she refuses to give up trying to speak the voices of the land."

In J.M. Coetzee's novel Diary of a Bad Year, the main character says the following of Krog: "Her theme is a large one: historical experience in the South Africa of her lifetime. Her capacities as a poet have grown in response to the challenge, refusing to be dwarfed. Utter sincerity backed with an acute, feminine intelligence, and a body of heart-rending experience to draw upon... No one in Australia writes at a comparable white heat. The phenomenon of Antjie Krog strikes me as quite Russian. In South Africa, as in Russia, life may be wretched; but how the brave spirit leaps to respond!"

In 2004, she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape as Extraordinary Professor.

Since 2004, she has been Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape and a research fellow at its Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research, and she regularly publishes literary criticism.

Krog is married to architect John Samuel.

She has four children – Andries, Susan, Philip, and Willem – and several grandchildren.

She was writer-in-residence at the Dutch Foundation for Literature in early 2019, at Ghent University in 2020, and at Leiden University in autumn 2021.