Willem Anker (born 1979) is a South African writer who writes in the

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

language. He was born in

Citrusdal Citrusdal is a town of 5,000 people in the Olifants River Valley in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is situated at the base of the Cederberg mountains about north of Cape Town. Agriculture in the area is dominated by citrus fruit ...

in 1979. He studied at

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...

, where he now teaches

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

. His debut novel, ''Siegfried'', was published in 2007. His most noted work to date is the multi-award winning ''Buys'' (2014) which was translated into English by

Michiel Heyns Michiel Heyns (born 2 December 1943) is a South African author, translator and academic. He went to school in Thaba 'Nchu, Kimberley and Grahamstown, and later studied at the University of Stellenbosch and Cambridge University The Unive ...

as ''Red Dog'' and was longlisted for the 2020

International Booker Prize The International Booker Prize (formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize) is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize, as the Boo ...

Awards

* 2008

University of Johannesburg Prize The University of Johannesburg Prize for South African Writing, also known as the UJ Prize, is awarded annually by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) for the best creative works in each of five categories: English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Northern Sot ...

, for ''Siegfried'' * 2015

, for ''Buys'' *2015 W.A. Hofmeyr Prize, for ''Buys'' *2016

Hertzog Prize The Hertzog Prize (or Hertzogprys) is an annual award given to Afrikaans writers by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for the Sciences and Art), formerly the South African Academy for Language, Literature ...

, for ''Buys'' *2016 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award, for ''Buys''

References

South African writers 1979 births Living people {{SouthAfrica-writer-stub