Uys Krige

Uys Krige (christened Mattheus Uys Krige) (4 February 1910 - 10 August 1987) was a South African writer, poet, playwright, translator, rugby player, war correspondent and romantic. He was born in Bontebokskloof (near Swellendam) in the Cape Province.

He was educated at the University of Stellenbosch. From 1931 to 1935 he lived in France and Spain, where he learned to speak both languages fluently. Krige also played rugby for a club in Toulon in the south of France.

When he arrived back in South Africa in 1935, he began his writing career as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail.

He left Spain before the Civil War began in 1936 but was a staunch supporter of the Republican side, unlike fellow South African poet Roy Campbell, who flirted with Franco.

During World War II he was a war correspondent with the South African Army in North Africa. He was captured in 1941 and sent to Italy where he spent two years in a prisoner of war camp. However, he escaped in September 1943 and returned to South Africa in 1946.

As a writer and poet Krige was extremely versatile — his works include novels, short stories, poems and plays in both Afrikaans and English. Krige is counted among the so-called Dertigers ("writers of the thirties"). He co-edited The Penguin Book of South African Verse (1968) with Jack Cope.

Krige translated many of the works of Shakespeare into Afrikaans. He translated works by Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda and Lope de Vega from Spanish, and works by Baudelaire, François Villon and Paul Éluard from French.

His brother was the painter and draughtsman François Krige. Their travels together in Spain were captured in Uys's book "Sol y Sombra" for which François provided the provocative illustrations.

He died near the town of Hermanus in the Cape Province.

The South African composer Cromwell Everson composed a song cycle, "Die Dobbelsteen", that used one of Uys's poems: "Drie Bome".

Bibliography

All publications are in Afrikaans unless otherwise noted. The English translations of the Afrikaans titles are given in brackets.

* Collected poems:
** "Kentering" (Change), 1935
** "Rooidag" (Red day), 1940
** "Oorlogsgedigte" (War poems), 1942
** "Hart sonder hawe" (Heart without harbour), 1949
** "Ballade van die groot begeer" (Ballad of the big desire), 1960
** "Vooraand" (The evening before), 1964

* Novels:
** "Die palmboom" (The palm tree), 1940
** The dream and the desert (in English), 1953

* Travelogues and war correspondence:
** The way out (in English), 1946
** "Sol y sombra", 1948
** "Ver in die wêreld" (Far in the world), 1951
** "Sout van die aarde" (Salt of the earth), 1961

* Plays:
** "Magdalena Retief", 1938
** "Die goue kring" (The golden circle), 1956

* One-act plays:
** "Die wit muur" (The white wall), 1940
** Alle paaie gaan na Rome (All roads lead to Rome), 1949
** "Die sluipskutter", 1951 (translated by the author as "The sniper" in 1962)