ISBN 9781415209998
Format Paperback
Published June 2023
Non-Returnable
ISBN 9781415209998
Format Paperback
Published June 2023
Non-Returnable
Eben Venter
Eben Venter is an Afrikaans-speaking writer who was born in Burgersdorp in South Africa and has lived in Australia, Japan and the Netherlands. He published eleven works of fiction (novels, short story collections and a cookbook). His works have been translated into English, Dutch and German.
He was awarded the M-Net Literary Award in 2010 for his book Santa Gamka.
Life
Venter was raised on a farm in Eastern Cape. He went to Grey College in Bloemfontein before he was conscripted into the air force and served on the Angolan border. He obtained an MA in philosophy and worked as a journalist in Johannesburg before leaving South Africa in 1986, during the State of Emergency. He went to Australia where he worked as a chef in his sibling’s café.
In 2005, Venter taught at Adam Mickiewicz University and Palacky University before becoming a writer-in-residency at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 2007.
On August 4, 2010, Venter was nominated for the M-Net Literary Award in the Afrikaans category for his book Santa Gamka.
The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University awarded him as an alumni achiever in November 2011. In 2012, he was writer-in-residence at Rhodes University. In 2018, Venter released his first book created in English instead of Afrikaans titled Green as the Sky Is Blue.
A mountain of flesh she is, this Decima, as she lies. She summons her strength to rise, all four feet on sand and shale. Puffs twirl and settle as her toes find their place. Three on each foot. Decima stands.
In the veld of the Eastern Cape a writer imagines her: Decima – a magnifi-cent black rhinoceros cow. Mother to Tandeka, herself plumped up with calf, Decima and her crash of rhinos await the birth of the new baby. Decima still recalls how she became an orphan many seasons ago, and tension mounts with the passing of each full moon.
Conjuring up the life of Decima is Eben. How do you write about this animal as a sentient being? he wants to find out. With the story of the rhino matri-arch and her kin, comes the various characters that impact on their lives: poachers, their clients, those who practise traditional medicine, also those whose calling it is to protect the animals. Entwined in Eben’s work on the rhino, is an account of his fragile, ageing mother. But ringing loudest in his ear, is the voice of Decima.
Eben Venter’s book, a creative blend of autofiction, animal fable, mystery and scientific enquiry, is an urgent plea to save one of earth’s megaherbivores. An elegiac work for numerous voices, Decima is a moving and thrilling lament to loss in all its many guises.