Martha, translated into English
2010-09-02
Christine Siebrits
THE launch of the book Martha, a Story About the Black Countess of Stamford, was hosted by The Book Traders at the Breytenbach Centre in Wellington on Saturday. The original Martha by Winnie Rust was first published in Afrikaans in 2004. It tells the story of the coloured woman Martha Solomons who eventually became the Duchess of Stamford. In 2005 the book was shortlisted for the Jan Rabie/MNet prize. Winnie Rust grew up in Wellington and comes from a family of writers. Her father, CP van der Merwe, was rector of the previous Wellington Training College, and a younger brother of the poet Boerneef. Winnie had been writing short stories and articles for magazines for some time before attempting her first novel, “Martha”. Martha has been translated into English by Elsa Silke, a freelance literary translator and editor and part-time lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. In 2006 she was awarded the SATI/Via Afrika prize for literary translation for This Life, the translation of Karel Schoeman’s novel Hierdie lewe. In 2009 she received the same award in the non-fiction category, for Chris Karsten’s biographical work Charlize: Ek leef my droom. A documentary is currently being planned on the Martha story by Maggie Follett of Wellington. The book is available at The Book Traders, Breytenbach Centre, Wellington. It is priced at R140.
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