Edwin de Kock
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Edwin de Kock (born March 9, 1930), writer and world traveler, was born in South Africa and became a U.S. citizen in 2000. His publications are in English, Esperanto, and Afrikaans, prose as well as poetry. He lives in Edinburgh, Texas.
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[edit] Professional life
Professionally de Kock has been mostly a high school and college teacher (Departmental Head, 1983-1990), but sometimes also a translator, editor, lay preacher, and—for one year—a volunteer missionary in South Korea. His eleven years of formal studies, full-time rating, were in theology, speech training, education, languages and literature. Additionally, as an autodidact and polyglot (acquainted with thirteen languages), he is widely read in history, international culture, and world affairs. At first, De Kock was mostly a poet, with ten books in the International Language. His original Esperanto poetry has made him famous, especially for its striking metaphors and imagery, but also because of his concern with the human condition and nature. From the haiku to the epic, he has created a vast array of verse in many metrical and free forms.
[edit] Religious life
He is a Christian. As a Seventh-day Adventist, he belongs to the Historical School of prophetic interpretation and rejects both Preterism and Dispensationalism[citation needed], a Protestant offshoot of Catholic Futurism, and practices vegetarianism. His religious faith has influenced his work, literary work, and social activism.
His motto being the Old Testament command, reiterated by Jesus: "Love your neighbor as yourself," with the addition: "Do to others what you would want them to do to you" (as if you were in their place). De Kock's great love of liberty and concern for downtrodden people has inspired in him a hatred for the inhumanity of man toward man. He has written or spoken out against cruelty, dictatorship, exploitation, and hierarchical oppression in church and state, together with the hypocrisy that often accompanies it. In his native South Africa during the apartheid era, he wrote poems since 1959 against white racism. Today he opposes reverse racism—miscalled "affirmative action"—as practiced by the new regime in South Africa, with its inhumanity toward and neglect of non-blacks, including white people.
[edit] Literature
A number of his poems have been translated into other languages, including English, Dutch, Hungarian, Chinese, Italian, Bulgarian, and Spanish. For twelve years (1977-1989), he presided over the Southern African Esperanto Association and remains a member of the prestigious international Academy of Esperanto, since 1973. At various times he has also been the editor of journals in this language: Afrika Esperantisto, 1955-1956; Bona Espero, 1977-1979, 1986-1987. For these activities, the World Esperanto Association during its world congress at Tel Aviv in 2000 made him an Honorary Life Member. He was the guest of honor at the Esperanto League for North America annual congress in Austin, Texas in 2005.
Nowadays he especially focuses on Bible prophecy, which has interested him for more than fifty years. Already published is his acclaimed Christ and Antichrist in Prophecy and History (2001), with further volumes on the way.
[edit] Books
- Kvin Elementoj (written 1957-58, published 1970)
- Ombroj de la Kvara Dimensio (1961)
- Fajro sur mia lango (1967)
- Poemoj kaj Prozeroj (1970)
- Plukonstrue (1975)
- Japaneskoj (1982)
- Saluton al la suno (1983)
- La konflikto de la epokoj (1984-1985)
- Vojaĝoj kaj aliaj poemoj (1992)
- De lando al lando, being prepared for publication
- Christ and Antichrist in Prophecy and History (2001)
- The Use and Abuse of Prophecy, awaiting publication
