A Bekkersdal Marathon is anthology of short stories written by Herman Charles Bosman.
Herman Charles Bosman is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English-language works utilize primarily Afrikaner characters and highlight the many contradictions in Afrikaner society during the first half of the twentieth century.
The 22 short stories assembled in this volume, published in book format in 1971 by Human and Rousseau, were all written during the last 18 months of Herman Charles Bosman's life [1] . Originally, the stories appeared as a weekly serial in ‘The Forum’ magazine. [1]
After leaving university, Bosman was appointed as a school teacher in the Groot Marico District. [2] In small, underdeveloped rural towns, such as the one where Bosman worked, the living room (‘voorkamer’) of a local farmer would serve as a post office. People would often gather here to chat and gossip. The conversations he participated in with the townspeople and farmers inspired the anthology. [2]
Groot Marico is a hamlet in the North West Province of South Africa. The economy relies heavily on agriculture, mining and tourism. Groot Marico is named after the Marico River.
In ‘A Bekkersdal Marathon’, the ‘voorkkamer’ of Jurie Steyn, a prosperous maize farmer, doubles as the village post office. [1] Regular visitors include Gysbert van Tonder (a notorious cattle rustler), At Naude (the owner of the district's only radio who prides himself on keeping abreast of national and world affairs) and Oupa Bekker (the oldest man in the District). [1] Vermaak, the school master, represents Bosman himself.
Bosman uses gentle irony to poke fun at the Afrikaans farmers. [2] Outwardly, the farmers project an image of conservative respectability which contrasts with their inner natures. The plots, language and content of the stories help the reader to look beneath the veneer and to understand the farmers as scheming, greedy, superstitious, provincial country bumpkins. Hypocritically, they routinely criticize Black people and English South Africans for foibles and failings which the farmers themselves display in ample measure. Bosman did not spare himself in the stories; Vermaak is depicted as occasionally naïve and his idiosyncrasies are discussed at length in the stories.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought.
In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order. The relation between natural and legal rights is often a topic of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract, a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy.
Philip José Farmer was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
Riverworld is a fictional planet and the setting for a series of science fiction books written by Philip José Farmer. Riverworld is an artificial "Super-Earth" environment where all humans are reconstructed. The books explore interactions of individuals from many different cultures and time periods. Its underlying theme is quasi-religious. The motivations of alien intelligences operating under ultra-ethical motives are explored.
Riders of the Purple Wage is a science fiction novella by American writer Philip José Farmer. It appeared in Dangerous Visions, the New Wave science fiction anthology compiled by Harlan Ellison, in 1967, and won the Hugo Award for best novella in 1968, jointly with Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey.
Charles Ardai is an American writer. He is the founder and CEO of Juno, an Internet company, and founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style paperback crime novels.
Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, also commonly known as the "Second Discourse", is a work by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Kabelo "Sello" Duiker,, was a South African novelist. His debut novel, Thirteen Cents, won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region. His second novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, won the 2002 Herman Charles Bosman Prize. He also worked in advertising and as a screenwriter.
Kuils River is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa, 25 km east of Cape Town.
Stephen Gray is a South African writer and critic who was born in Cape Town in 1941. He studied at St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown and later at the University of Cape Town, Cambridge University, England, and the University of Iowa, US. Until 1992, he was Professor of English at the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg.
Barney Simon was a South African writer, playwright and director.
Prieska is a town on the south bank of the Orange River, in the province of the Northern Cape, in western South Africa.
According to books by Tyson Blue, Stephen J. Spignesi, and Rocky Wood et al., there are numerous unpublished works by Stephen King that have come to light throughout King's career. These allegedly include novels and short stories, most of which remain unfinished. Most are stored among Stephen King's papers in the special collections of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, some of which are freely accessible to the library's visitors. However, others require King's permission to read. Additionally, there are a number of uncollected short stories, published throughout King's long career in various anthologies and periodicals, that have never been published in a King collection.
S.A. Partridge is an author of young adult fiction novels and short stories. She currently lives in Cape Town. For her contribution to South African literature, Partridge was named one of Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans, a distinction awarded annually to notable South Africans under the age of 35.
Kwela Books is a South African publishing house founded in Cape Town in 1994 as a new imprint of NB Publishers.
The Media24 Books Literary Awards are a group of South African literary prizes awarded annually by Media24, the print-media arm of the South African media company Naspers. They are open to authors whose books are published within the Media24 Books stable, which includes NB Publishers, Jonathan Ball Publishers, LuxVerbi-BM, NVA, and Van Schaik Publishers. The awards were worth R35 000 each in 2013.
"The Blue Giraffe" is a science fiction story on the concept of mutation by American writer L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction for August, 1939. It first appeared in book form in the anthology Adventures in Time and Space ; it later appeared in the anthologies World of Wonder, The Science Fiction Bestiary, Androids, Time Machines and Blue Giraffes, Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction Stories: Volume 1, 1939, Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, and An Anthropomorphic Century. The story has been translated into Italian, French and German.
Rayda Jacobs is a South African writer and film-maker.
Petrus Bosman was a South African ballet dancer, teacher, choreographer, and répétiteur, active in England, France, and the United States.