Vatmaar, the Afrikaans novel by a man in his 70s which won the M-Net and the CNAprizes, recently elicited a heated auction among German publishers. The rights to a German translation were finally sold to Luchterhand, a literary house with a good reputation, for a high five-figure sum.
Vatmaar has already been published Meulenhoff in Holland, where it elicited admiring reviews, and an English-language sale in Britain and the United States is also on the cards. South African publisher Kwela Books hopes to have an English manuscript – translated by Chris van Wyk – ready soon.
Kwela will also establish a literary prize named for Vatmaar’s author. The AHM Scholtz Prize will go annually to the book, published by Kwela, which contributes the most to South Africa’s literary heritage.
Film rights to the book have been optioned by Big World Pictures for a possible Dutch- South African co-production.
The book focuses on a small community called Vatmaar, referring to the “vatmaar” or booty taken from Boer houses during the Anglo-Boer War. Scholtz looks at these events from the perspective of the local coloured men employed by the British during the war.
to help carry out Kitchener’s scorched-earth policy.
There is a cast of colourful characters: Ta Vuurmaak, the storyteller and chronicler, is an old Griqua man; Grandpa Lewies is the former British Lance Corporal Lewis who married Ruth, a Morolong girl, after the war; there is the white farmer Piet de Bruin and his sister, and a host of others, whose personal stories illustrate issues like racism, class consciousness, illiteracy, family feuding, love…
The wonder of the book is not just its freshness and authenticity and the fact that events like the First World War and the diamond diggings are at last seen from the perspective of those who are not white. What is surprising is that the author tells painful truths without bitterness and never neglects the complexity of the South African canvas. There is great humour and dignity in his narration and interviews with the author reveal that this is not just narrative technique, but flows from a tremendous graciousness and wisdom.
A little more about the author: Andrew Martin Scholz, was born in 1923 in Kimberley, oldest of 10 children. His father was a saddle-maker, his mother a housewife. He left school after Std 5 to support his family when his father became bedridden. He became a joiner, but at 17 he joined the (white) artillery unit of the South African army. He returned to South Africa after five years, after fighting in Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt and being taken prisoner in Italy for 20 months. He worked as joiner and building contractor in Swaziland and Botswana before settling permanently in Mafikeng. He is married and the father of 12 children. Writing to him is a way of relaxation in his retirement, but also a way of making the stories of ordinary Coloured people known,(although he personally rejects this epithet, preferring the Afrikaans term Bruinmense,).
The book has won the following awards: the Eugene Marais Prize of the South African Academy, the CNA Prize and the M-Net Prize, for which he was in competition with writers like Dalene Matthee, Karel Schoeman, Elsa Joubert and Andre Brink. Kwela have now established a new South African prize, the AHM Scholtz Prize, in his honour – for the book which contributes the most to South Africa,s literary heritage.
Film rights have been optioned to Big World Pictures, for a possible Dutch-South African co-production.