Dan Roodt
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Dan Roodt is an Afrikaans-speaking writer and activist.
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[edit] Childhood and Education
Daniel François Roodt was born on 26 May 1957 in the mining town of Springs, east of Johannesburg, South Africa. His father was an accountant but with strong literary interests and his maternal grandfather was an amateur poet. Also on his mother's side, his great grandfather fought on the Boer side during the Second War for Independence (Second Anglo-Boer War) and was wounded in the battle of Rooiwal on 12 April 1902. He kept a war diary, Met ryperd en Mauser (With horse and Mauser), which was later published.
From an early age, Roodt was an avid reader. He attended the Laerskool Christiaan Beyers in Springs where he also became head boy. His high school years were spent at the Hoër Seunskool Helpmekaar, the most famous Afrikaans school in Johannesburg where he took Afrikaans, English, Mathematics, Science, Biology, Latin and some French. As an athlete, he excelled in the high jump and became a provincial champion who participated in the junior South African championship in Bloemfontein.
After his matric examinations in 1974, Roodt enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand. Initially he studied law, but soon abandoned this for literature, philosophy and political science, obtaining two B.A. Honours degrees in Afrikaans and in Comparative Literature, an M.A. in Literary Theory, and a Ph.D. in Afrikaans.
Among his most recent works are a novel, Moltrein (2004), a book of essays, Aweregs (2006), as well as a political polemic in English, The Scourge of the ANC (2005). Dan Roodt is cited in both Kannemeyer (1983: 241) and Van Coller (1998: 83), being the two most recent and authoritative literary histories on Afrikaans literature.
[edit] Professional Life
During 1985, he lectured at the University of Durban-Westville in Afrikaans literature, but left for Paris where he studied philosophy under some of the most famous philosophers in that city, including Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard and René Scherrer, obtaining a D.E.A. (Diplôme des études approfondies) in modern French philosophy.
Back in Johannesburg in 1992, he worked as a derivatives trader in various bank dealing rooms in Johannesburg. In 1999 he resigned from Citibank to devote himself to writing.
He is a member of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns [2].
[edit] Personal Life
Dr. Roodt is married to Karin Roodt and has three children.
[edit] Activism
Perhaps best known for his strong views on the preservation of Afrikaans, Roodt once commented: "Each time a new book is written or published in Afrikaans, we spit in the faces of our former British and current Afro-Imperialists."[1]
Roodt co-founded PRAAG (Pro-Afrikaans Action Group) which describes itself as an extra-parliamentary movement devoted to the rights of Afrikaners[3]. PRAAG is also the name of an entity that has published Roodt's work and that of Kleinboer, Stephen Smith and Lydia van Eeden[4].
One of PRAAG's titles "Negrologie", written by Stephen Smith, is described as an honest look at the failures of Africa. The author blames Africans ("who are addicted to foreign aid") and Europeans ("who eagerly provide aid to assuage their guilt") for Africa's conflicts, famines, tropical diseases, and "corrupt, incompetent administrations". The title of the book denotes what Smith calls "the cult of black identity and black consciousness".[5].
Roodt's most controversial title must be 'The Scourge of the ANC', in which he compares post-1994 ANC rule to Britain's final colonisation of South Africa in the early 1900s. He rails against the state of the country describing South Africa as "a criminal state" with a "government ...corrupt to the core" and argues that South Africa needs a "speedy end to ANC rule".[6]
[edit] Works
- Sonneskyn en Chevrolet, novel (1980)
- Kommas uit 'n boomzol, poetry (1980)
- Twee sinne, prose (1985)
- Om die waarheidskommissie te vergeet, essay (2001)
- Moltrein, novel (2004)
- The Scourge of the ANC, essays (2005)
- Aweregs, essays (2006)
